


When Your Clothes Love You

by CardboarianNights



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Combat Lingerie AU, Gabe as battlearmor, Lots of Angst, M/M, SEP AU, Smut, Tentacle Sex, elements of BDSM, elements of gabe getting ntr'd/cuckholded, everything is very consentual, jack has multiple sexual partners, lots of aftercare, lots of fluff, much more romantic than sexual, naughty battle armor, yes jesse and hanzo are in it but it's a background relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-08-22 10:11:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 52,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8282158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CardboarianNights/pseuds/CardboarianNights
Summary: SEP is a unit of the military that uses specialized combat robes to defeat threats that would otherwise outright kill a normal soldier alone. Jack Morrison and his combat robe 'Gabriel' are the best of the best when it comes to working together and eliminating those threats. But Jack and Gabriel's close relationship has the combat robe wondering if his wearer will ever feel the same way he feels for him...





	1. Me and You

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a picture of soldier 76's 'jet' skin, which is what Gabriel's default 'jacket' form looks like.
> 
> http://8gmwp015fo-flywheel.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Soldier-76-Jet.jpg (front)
> 
> http://orcz.com/images/thumb/0/05/OverwatchSoldier76JetSkin3.jpg/600px-OverwatchSoldier76JetSkin3.jpg (Back)
> 
> Now has a playlist!
> 
> https://playmoss.com/en/cardboariannights/playlist/when-your-clothes-love-you

The last bastion unit fell with a loud thud on the road as Jack Morrison panted heavily, the pulse-rifle he held in his hand retracted into the black, sleazy outfit that he was wearing, like ink. The outfit adjusted with the additional material, added from the pulse-rifle being reabsorbed, to slid more material over his ass and make the tight black thong his was wearing into a pair of booty shorts and a more loose-fitting black and red biking jacket with a red ‘76’ on the back.

Jack smiled as he continued to catch his breath, bringing a hand up to pat his opposite shoulder a few times. “Nice job, Gabriel.” He chuckled before bringing his hand up to run it through his short blonde hair. “We cut that one close, didn't we?”

Yeah, because your dumbass just had to rush over to help another platoon that didn't necessarily need our help, Jack. Also running in front of several other bastion units to use your body to shield the evacuees didn't help one bit, Dipshit. But go ahead, pat yourself on the shoulder and make yourself look like an idiot with an inflated ego when your partner did all the heavy lifting by keeping your blonde ass alive.

Jack was standing up straight and frowning as he put his hands into the pockets of the jacket, starting to head back to his unit since all the civilians had been evacuated from the area. He needed a break from Gabriel's ‘combat’ form and the toll it took on his body as he wobbled from how much blood Gabriel used to keep him alive along with making a working pulse-rifle. Light-headedness was a common form of battle fatigue for the combat robe wearers but the powers they granted were worth far more than the side-effects. 

“Are you being a grouchy ass, Gabriel?” Jack huffed as his cheeks flushed from the eyes of the common soldiers staring at him and his ‘gear’. 

No one got to chose what the combat robes looked like on their wearer’s body, it was all about what the robes wanted and to force something onto them was like asking to throw gasoline on an open fire. Gabriel was the same way except slightly more responsive to the needs of his wearer by giving him a badass biker coat and rather bland black booty shorts and boots compared to some robes who enjoyed humiliating their wearer with almost nothing covering them. 

Stop pretending that you can't hear my voice, Jack! I protect your life with my own body in situations where you would be reduced to a pile of gore and all I ask is a little conversation once and awhile! Is that really so hard to ask?

“Okay, fine! I’ll stop recklessly running into gunfire. You happy now?” Jack asked with a huff.

Maybe if you actually kept your fucking promises then I wouldn't get so mad all the time. Also, you not running like an idiot into danger to be the big hero? You’re more likely to actually call your mother than not do stupid shit like that, Morrison.

Jack's heart rate skyrocketed as the captain of his SEP unit, Mark Wonder, smiled at him when Jack lined up beside the other SEP robe wearers in front of the man. The drop ship waited for them to board and Mark gave Jack a little wink as he walked by him and led the six inside. Mark was one inch shorter than Jack but my god did he radiate pure stud vibes that shot straight to Jack's dick. They were fuck buddies since another side effect of the combat robes was sexual desire, mostly due to the personas of the robes and their ability to… manipulate their bodies how they pleased.

Gabriel snickered as Jack went to sit in his seat next to Mark on the drop ship and produced a black tendril from the fabric inside of his booty shorts. When Jack sat down he immediately shot up and let out a sharp gasp in surprise as his hand grabbed the fabric of his shorts. 

What? You don't like this, Jack? You don't like a little tendril loving against your asshole getting you nice and ready for that thick stud’s cock? 

Gabriel snickered again as Jack was commanded to sit down by the commander and to deal with the naughty tendril tracing the curves of his ass slowly under his shorts. Mark and the others knew full well that some combat robes got off on being assholes to their wearers but the shorter brunette placed a hand reassuringly over Jack’s shoulder. 

See? He noticed you now, farm boy! You should be thanking me rather than flushing up a storm in embarrassment like the innocent virgin we both know you are not!

“Stop being an insufferable ass, Gabriel!” Jack hissed under his breath as he tried to keep his composure. 

Mark seemed to being a better job of that by talking to Jack normally as the drop ship took off and headed back to base. No matter what lewd noises Gabriel tried to push out of Jack’s lips, Mark kept his cool and never prodded him for what dirty things Gabriel was trying to do to him. Gabriel was annoyed that he was barred from touching Jack’s cock and balls along with doing much more than teasing his hole but he wasn't going to do anything like that to compromise their relationship; consent meant a lot to Gabriel, especially since he was clothing.

He wanted to be Jack’s and only Jack’s.

When they arrived back at base, Mark attempted to gently guide his hand over Jack’s as they walked but the blond just casually tucked his hands into his jacket pockets. It annoyed Gabriel to watch Mark try to be someone to Jack that he clearly wasn't. Jack and Mark were fuck buddies, not boyfriends. Jack explicitly said that he wasn't interested in Mark like that and he always backed off when Jack pulled away. That was the only reason Gabriel kept his mouth shut about Mark because he didn't do it very often to raise red flags for him. He would keep Jack safe from all threats, even ones from his own teammates.

Jack and Mark went into Jack’s room, and Mark’s combat robe obeyed him instantly by morphing into a long T-shirt for him to take off. Mark was erect and proud as he folded his companion up and set him on Jack’s dresser before moving to the bed to wait. As for Jack? Jack was still in his robe and whispering to it reassuringly.

“Where’d all your anger go from earlier, Gabe? Someone take the piss out of your thunder?” Jack chuckled softly and gently brushed his fingertips over the leather of the black jacket affectionately. He ran his fingers over the red stripe that ran down on an angle towards the zippers and Gabriel felt himself shiver from the sweet touch.

He could feel the other robe’s eyes roll along with Mark’s as Jack took his sweetass time de-robing. Yeah. It was kind of unnecessary for Jack to get Gabriel to remove himself from his body voluntarily, but it made him love Jack all the more for it. He gladly told the other robe to suck a flaccid cock while Jack made him feel appreciated for all the work he did for the day. He honestly thought Jack was dropped on his head as a kid because sweet talking your clothes off was surely nothing Gabriel ever heard of happening before. That was until he realized how much he liked it.

Jack smoothed his hands over the front of his jacket and Gabriel felt himself practically melt from the affection. The tendril that teased him on the plane was back in his pants and gently fondling Jack’s asshole as the blond tensed up from the unexpected contact.

Please, Jack. I can make you feel good like he can. We did it once before! Kick the stallion out for tonight. I know what make you-

“Gabe. No.” Jack spoke with a shaky breath and that was enough for Gabriel to retract his entire self off of Jack’s body to make his jacket loose enough to unzip with no trouble. 

The action seemed to concern Jack as he watched the jacket unzip itself and expose his very hard erection to the world. A bead of precum rolled down from his tip but Jack was hesitant to take Gabriel off when he withdrew from him like that.

No meant no. Jack’s respect was all he had and right now that meant acknowledging that he wanted the brunette stallion more than him.

“I think 76 wants you to take him off now, Jack.” Mark smiled reassuringly at Jack, helping Gabriel’s wearer when he could not. 

Jack frowned, still deeply troubled for some reason and gently pulled his arms out of the coat one until he was holding the jacket to his bare chest.

Hang me up, Jack. You need to rest and unwind. Please. It’s okay.

Jack did just that, carefully zipping Gabriel after he got the arms of the hanger in place and smoothed the front of the jacket with his hands once more. It was stuff like this that made it agonizing to watch Jack walk away from him, leaving Gabriel hanging on the closet door handle and into the arms of his affectionate fuck boy. He would dutifully watch over Jack from afar, even as Mark screwed him to the point of him screaming Mark’s awful name every time. 

Even if it broke him a bit more each time it happened.

‘You’re a fool, you know that?’ The other combat robe spoke to him from the top of the dresser, well aware the two men on the bed could not hear them. ‘It’s sickening to watch you do this to yourself, 76. Mark understands that Jack needs the ‘slow and steady’ treatment and wants to do right by him.’

I know that.

‘Jack is understanding, but he doesn't and will never see you as anything more than his partner and armor. Even if he survive, soldiers grow old and retire eventually.’

I’ll accept that and move on to the next wearer when my time with Jack is through.

‘Will you really be able to?’

Gabriel let the silence between them hang the conversation as Jack rode on top of Mark instead of staying on the bottom like he usually did. The sight was nice but Gabriel just shut the whole thing out as he numbed himself to outside sensations, especially Jack’s whorish moans. He instead focused on the warmth Jack left behind and the warmth that would come right back in the morning when he pulled Gabriel on.

Gabriel loved Jack. Jack would always come back.

\--

“Mornin’, Gabe.” Jack yawned as he climbed out of bed, sore from last night but satisfied as always. 

Mark left after they finished up last night since Jack could never sleep if anyone else was in the room. Gabriel was more than fine with this as he watched Jack go to the dresser to pull out a simple t-shirt, boxers, socks, and sweatpants before pulling them all on the bed. His blonde hair had the cutest cow lick that Gabe had ever seen and it was all the better that Jack hadn't realized it yet as he stood up fully clothed. Jack smiled as he walked over to the closet and gently brushed his hands over the jacket’s shoulders before unzipping the front to get Gabe off the hanger.

Any resentment or doubt he had was water under the bridge as Jack pulled him on over his clothing simply for warmth and enjoyment, leaving the front unzipped before going to the bathroom. Jack yawned hard once more, tears brimming in the corners of his eyes before he wiped the sleep out of them along with the water. He flipped on the lights in the bathroom and saw himself in the mirror; Gabriel bursted out laughing at the look on Jack’s face when he saw how bad his hair looked.

“I thought you felt smug for some reason, Gabe.” Jack grumbled as he picked up his comb and started to fix his hair.

Oh, Jack. You always make me laugh. Don't you get it? There's no one else I would rather tease and make fun of!

“Yeah. Yeah. Keep laughing, you insufferable bastard.” He set down his comb on the counter before relieving himself in the toilet and washing up for breakfast.

Jack then pulled on his boots and they both headed out to the mess hall for the early morning grits. Gabriel deepened the pockets of the coat as Jack slipped his hands in, whistling a tune while they walked down the hallway. He knew that Jack relied on him to get into the spirit of an early morning, deepening the pockets so his aching arms could relax more comfortably was one of the ways Gabe showed that he cared for him. Even if that meant doing weird things to the pockets like making one connecting one in the center, like a hoodie, and making the zippers look more decorative than anything else.

Jack nodded his head and greeted his fellow SEP wearers as they came to and from the mess hall. A majority of them were not wearing their combat robes like Jack was, it made Gabe feel all the more special that they both had a mutual understanding of where the line was between them and that his wearer could wear him without fear of a sudden transformation. Zipping up the front of the jacket and saying their special ‘activation’ line was what prompted a transformation trigger for Gabe before battle would start. Gabe thought it was a badass way to lead into transformations anyways and Jack would change up his pose like he was pretending to be a power ranger or something similar.

“Feeling good today, Gabe?” Jack whispered to him with a smile, bringing his hand out of the pocket to gently pat the shoulder padding as if Gabe was a good buddy of his; a human buddy.

Always, Jack. Even if you are the most reckless partner I’ve ever had to entertain.

Jack entered the mess hall with a fond smile on his face for some reason and got into line behind a back neither he or Gabriel recognized. Being the polite walking pile of sunshine he was, Jack gently tapped the brunette on the shoulder to get his attention. The kid couldn't have been older than twenty as he turned around with a cowboy hat on his head and still in his black PJs; definitely a newbie wearer added to SEP.

“Never seen you around here before. You new? The name’s Jack Morrison.” Jack smiled politely as he offered his hand to the kid. 

The kid took his hand with a huge grin and gave Jack a firm shake. “Well, now! Nice to meet a friendly face ‘round these parts! Name’s Jesse McCree, Partner!”

Wow. The military attracts all sorts of freaks but this had to be the first time Gabriel ever laid eyes on an actual cowboy in the ranks. Jack apparently caught that comment and swatted his hand against the shoulder of his coat.

Hey! It’s the fucking truth, Captain America! Lay off the fine leather!

Jesse quirked a brow at Jack for that seemingly random swat at his jacket before he actually looked at Gabriel’s wearer from top to bottom approvingly. “Nice jacket, Partner. They actually let you keep it here?”

Definitely a newbie if he couldn't sense the difference like everyone else in the room.

“Nah. This is how Gabriel likes to present himself out of combat. He’s a combat robe.” Jack chuckled fondly as both him and the cowboy moved up in line together. “You picked your hat as the personal effect you wanted to bring into SEP?” He asked curiously as he picked up a plastic tray from the ‘clean’ pile, the cowboy doing the same right after.

Jesse huffed in annoyance. “Yeah. I wanted to bring my boots and chaps with but I was only allowed to pick one so I took my hat.” His eyes went down to the coat curiously as he brought a hand up to cup his chin. “So, your combat robe’s name is ‘Gabriel’? He does a great job replicating the details of a normal coat that I would have never thought it different at all.” He smiled happily.

That’s because I’m a fucking professional combat robe, unlike those OTHER low lives I’m forced to call my ‘siblings’.

“Well, all of them are actually referred to officially by their production number.” Jack explained happily to the cowboy as they both picked up a styrofoam bowl and filled them with cereal. “‘Gabriel’ is what I like to call him and he responds well to it so we went along with it.”

Jesse filled his own bowl and grabbed some fruit to mimic Jack as he listened in earnest to the story. “So, is everyone else wearing their combat robes in here right now?” He looked about the tables filled with people eating and talk in the small cafeteria curiously, trying to see if he could spot anything out of the ordinary.

“You’ll learn all about it starting today for training but general no one wears their combat robes outside of missions and training sims. They usually get up to mischief, to say the least, if left to their own devices and that’s usually your body.” Jack chuckled as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Gabe is a lot more respectful so I wear him around even out of battle. I figured it would relieve his boredom by walking around with him on.”

Jesse flushed a bit at that first part, lowering the brim of his hat and chuckling nervously. “I heard about that part during the on boardin’. But it’s somethin’ else to see yer bond between each other bein’ so strong that ya trust em that much to not make a darn fool of ya.”

Now Jack was flush for some damn reason and it was humiliating to see his partner thrown off by a little praise by a newbie five years younger than him. Gabriel produced a black tendril from the fabric lining of the jacket and hardened the tip before jabbing Jack firmly near the collarbone. Jack jumped up a bit and swat his hand at his collarbone from reflex.

“Ow! What was that for, Gabe?!” Jack hissed under his breath to his partner.

You’re an embarrassment to us both, Morrison.

Gabriel retracted the tendril back into the lining of the jacket and huffed as Jack and Jesse finished collecting their meal to sit down at one of the tables. Jack punished Gabriel by slipping the jacket off and hanging it behind him on the chair. He was furious and Jack didn’t even acknowledge his frustration by commenting on it as he ate, no voicing his disappointment in him or anything.

Just you wait until the next time you put me on and we go back to the room, Jack Morrison… Just you wait…

“So, uh, what was that all about?” Jesse asked as he started pouring milk into his cereal from the milk carton. Jack sighed as he put some butter on his toasted bread and took a quick bite from it.

“He was angry with me for some reason and jabbed me on the chest.”

“Yeah? Mind if I try him on?” The cowboy asked curiously. Jack almost spat milk out of his nose and covered his mouth to contain his laughter at the sudden question.

“You know, there’s a number on the back of Gabriel’s jacket form that says the number ‘76’. It’s not his production number, it’s the amount of partners he went through before settling on me.” Jack chuckled fondly.

“Wait. You pullin’ my leg?” 

Jack took Gabe off the back of his chair and handed him to Jesse. “See for yourself.”

Jesse set his spoon down and hesitantly took Gabriel from the smug Jack.

Oh? What am I? Your loyal mutt, Jack Morrison? Eager for me to bite simply cause it’s not you? Fuck you, Prick!

Jesse pulled the coat on and nipped his lip nervously as he waited for the pain that did not come. Gabriel sat idle on Jesse, not doing anything just to spite Jack as the cowboy hesitantly started to relax and look at the jacket curiously before looking back to Jack. Jack was scowling, deeply offended by Gabriel’s lack of reaction, and just to put the salt in the wound, Gabriel produced a little black tendril on the shoulder to wave at Jack. 

“You little shit…!” Jack shot up and grabbed Gabriel, along with Jesse by extension, by the collar.

Gabriel responded by producing his own black tendrils the grab Jack’s shirt to yank him forward too.

YOU WANNA FUCKING GO, JACK?!

“Ten credits on Gabriel!”

“Ten on Jack!”

It was a madhouse as bets were cast down and Jack stared down his partner, not even seeing the panicking Jesse still being caught between them. How would a brawl actually go down between them though? Technically Gabriel got the reaction he wanted out of Jack so hurting him would be going a bit too far. He just opted to release Jack and retracted his tendril’s after smugly tapping the blonde’s cheek with one of them.

“Give me my jacket back, McCree!” Jack yelled as he released Jesse and watched as the brunette scrambled to get the jacket off and toss it back to him. He then picked up his tray of food and stomped out of the mess hall with Gabriel tucked under his arm as the other’s booed at his withdrawal. Jack threw Gabriel onto the bed as he slammed the door to his room closed with his foot. He walked over to the table to set his tray down and pulled out his chair to sit down. Jack resumed eating his breakfast in silence while Gabriel was discarded mess on the bed.

Jack had never thrown him before. He always took such excellent care of him and never once treated him anything less than a partner to cherish. Why was he getting sent to the dog house? Because Jack couldn’t take a joke? Fine! If he wanted to be a stubborn jackass then he didn’t have to go along with his wearer’s wants either!

Jack was halfway through eating his bowl of cereal before he finally spoke up. “I didn’t appreciate what you did, Gabe. You know I value you more than a partner should and I just thought you would have my back, is all.” He spoke calmly, still keeping his back to Gabriel as he ate.

So I’m not allowed to have a little fun at your expense? It was harmless, Jack. Defying you once doesn’t mean that I’m not on your side when it actually matters, especially when it was to poke some holes in your ego in front of the newbie. 

Jack sighed as he brought a hand up to run through his hair. “I guess you had a point though. I was so sure you were going to reject him that I didn’t think you were going to pull the rug out from under me for that one.” He chuckled sheepishly. “I’m sorry for getting angry with you, alright?” Jack finally looked over his shoulder and Gabriel got to see his reassuring smile.

It was just a little spat, Jack. Friends have them all the time, right? That’s what we are. Thank you for apologizing though. I’m sorry for teasing you.

When Jack finally finished up his meal, Gabriel watched as Jack rose from the table and went back to the door to lock it. If Gabriel had a heart it would be racing by now as he watching Jack slowly slip off his clothes as he came towards the bed.

“Maybe I need a reminder that you’re not some obedient piece of cloth? Hm?” Jack kept his socks on as he climbed onto the bed, his cock fully erect and bouncing for Gabriel as he stalked towards him on all fours. “You were so eager last night and that’s all I could think about…” He purred as he picked up Gabriel and pulled him on one sleeve at a time.

Jack… Jackie, please…

“Put me in my place, Gabriel. I need you.” Jack’s voice breath as he went back down on all fours and Gabriel was all too happy to trigger the transformation over Jack’s quivering body. Tendrils shot out from the outside of the cloth, turning the entire fabric black as they spread out over Jack’s body like veins. Jack whimpered and sucked in a breath as a bulk of the tendrils slid down the front of his body slowly, tracing the folds of his muscles in his skin and pulling on it ever so slightly to tease his warm body. Once they reached his hips, they moved down and wrapped around his blonde curls above his quivering cock. They pulled the hairs up straight, applying slight pressure while the rest formed a loose sack over his cock. The sack avoided contact with Jack’s cock and tied itself up behind his balls for support, drawing a soft moan from him as a few tendrils worked their way down his back, massaging his stiff back while he relaxed.

I’ll put you in your place, Jack. But unlike everyone else who fucks you, I’ll make sure your body enjoys it as a whole rather than focus on solely your aching cock.

The jacket melted as Gabriel continued to thread out his tendrils from its core to cover Jack’s arms, legs and work it’s way up to weave through his short blonde hair. He always made she that Jack’s pectorals and shoulder were covered comply by a thin layer of black, wanting to keep him warm and secure; to give Jack a grounding point so he knew where exactly Gabriel was. He loved his wearer greatly and so this layer was like his arms holding Jack, even if he had no body to properly love him like a human would. If Gabriel had a heart, it would be aching for Jack as he whimpered and kissed the tendrils that gently laid over his lips, giving him purchase and an outlet for his desires. 

Desires that Gabriel told himself was Jack’s love for him and him alone.

The tendrils over Jack’s hands threaded themselves to pool lightly in his palms to hold his fingers gently while the tendrils rolling down Jack’s legs pooled where his knees touched the mattress, giving him more support; He wanted Jack’s comfort above all, wanting him to be shameless and comfortable so he will never prefer anyone over Gabriel ever. No matter how many stallions he decides to let mount him. 

“Gabe… So good to me…” Jack whimpered as he pushed his forehead into the pillow, earning him a gentle massage to his back and scalp with the tendrils that pulled and pushed gently to work the tension out of him.

I love you, Jack Morrison. I will always care for you, even when you piss me the fuck off. I can’t say that I’m not also touched by your heroic nature but it’s not worth the thought of losing you.

Jack crawls forward to the nightstand and reaches for the lube, moaning and sucking in a sharp breath as each movement tugs on his pubes and balls. His cock bobs in it’s pouch; He knows what Gabe intends on doing to him and he hands the bottle to the tendril Gabriel extends to him from his chest.

He was still sore from last night from riding his stallion partner and Gabe understood very well what Jack wanted him to use the lube for. He had seen it used enough times by the humans who pleased his wearer from his spot on the hanger, hanging from the closet door handle. Gabe passed the bottle down Jack’s body with little assistant tendrils that sprouted up along the black veins over his body until it got down to the end where a larger tendril waited over his asscheek from the sack. The veins pulled on Jack, coaxing him to relax and let him handle the work while he obeyed and hugged him pillow under his face and chest. 

Gabe was ecstatic. Jack only did that when he knew he was going to be unable to control himself and moan loudly. He was very much turned on and Gabriel barely did anything more than give his body a massaging cage; a non-sexually stimulating one at that since he didn’t even move the ones holding Jack’s pubes or the milking sack attached from his balls over his cock. He popped the cap off the lube with a smaller tendril and squeezed a small amount of lube to the tip of the former tendril before it was closed and tossed onto the bed. The black tendril absorbed the slick moisture and spread it across its surface automatically before it gently came down and rolled teasing circles around Jack’s anus.

Jack sucked in a breath and pushed backwards, wanting the tendril to push inwards but Gabriel continued his teasing. The sack that hung idle around Jack’s cock and balls sprouted thin tendrils inside and they curled around his cock firmly as Jack’s breath hitched into a whine muffled by his pillow. It was a sweet sound to Gabriel, knowing how much Jack loved his teasing, something he could only get by letting Gabe be his partner and no one else. Gabriel slithered a thin tendril down Jack’s cock hole, lubricated by the bead of precum and some of the lube he transferred from the digit playing with his asshole.

“O-Oh GOD…!” Jack body quivered in delight from the stretching of his urethra and Gabriel tightened the veins around Jack’s body to hold him still in his pleasure cage. He wasn’t going to let Jack buckle himself forward and hump his bed to an orgasm like last time, not when Gabriel wanted to assert his superiority to all of Jack’s stallions. More tendrils shot out to lock his joints into place in a comfortable manner but gave no quarter as Jack was a whimpering mess as he could only move his head. Gabriel waited until Jack’s next exhale from his lips to push the tendril at his anus forward and dove into that warmth. Jack’s head pressed harder into the pillow to muffle his guttural groan of pleasure and Gabriel gave him exactly what he desired.

Gabriel was used to dabbing his tendril against Jack’s prostate to tease him slowly into coming but this time he formed a dark black cock with the tendril, stretching Jack and thrusting into him with the rest of the lube he was storing up. Jack’s body was quivering and sweating as Gabriel fucked him, the tendril in his urethra slowly stretching him as Jack was sobbing deliriously. Gabriel felt the rush of Jack’s cum forcibly push the tendril out off his cock as Jack grunted loudly, his abs contracting hard when it came out with a soft pop, allowing the bag to finally be filled with his semen. Gabriel continued to milk Jack’s prostate with several flicks with the tendril instead of a bulky slow cock. 

“Gabe! G-GABE! O-OH F-FUCK!” Jack thrashed against his bindings from the overstimulation and the sudden loudness of his voice, no longer muffled by the pillow, shocked Gabriel out of his concentration. His grip on Jack’s body failed and his wearer collapsed face forward onto the bed, his body still quivering from the aftershocks of stimulation. Gabriel absorbed Jack’s semen, converting it into energy for later use, and felt himself melt over Jack’s body. Every inch over Jack’s naked body was covered in a warm black blanket, Gabriel converting the fabric to Jack’s favorite fleece blanket that he brought with him from home. Jack’s breathing was shaky but his smile was that of complete satisfaction as Gabe wrapped himself around him and held him close.

He could never be human. Gabriel accepted this fact but he could always be Jack’s comfort when he needed him. Gabriel would always strive to be useful to Jack, even when he prefered to take other men above him at times. His love was unconditional and he hoped Jack could see it in moments like this. 

Jack woke up two hours later and Gabe felt himself smiling as his wearer slid off the bed but kept him wrapped around his body as he walked about the room. Maybe he should do a fleece blanket mode more often if Jack liked it that much. He made his way over to the kitchen counter and started making a pot of coffee. SEP soldiers were always given the day off after battle to allow them to recover from blood loss or injuries and Jack usually spent the day mulling about the room with Gabriel rather than socialize.  
“Kind of curious where you learned a few of your new tricks earlier, Gabe.” Jack chuckled as he huddled the blanket around him for warmth. Gabriel sprouted a fleece hood over the top to cover Jack’s head and eyes, intentionally blinding him in that moment. Jack smirked as he brought a hand up to push the fabric out of his eyes. “Playful today, aren’t you?”

Me? Playful? Pfft. Yeah right.

A fleece tendril came out and booped Jack’s nose before retreating back into the safety of the sea of living fleece Jack was holding around him. That would teach him to call him to call Gabriel ‘playful’. Jack wiggled his nose from the touch and smiled as he let out a soft laugh. There should be laws against how wonderful a person could be. A sudden pounding on the door along with the sound of a scuffle outside caused Gabriel to transform over Jack as he rushed to the door; now donning his jacket, booty shorts, and boots, Jack threw open the door to see Jesse McCree struggling in the hallway and was shoved aside as the screaming cowboy kicked the door closed behind him.

“JESUS CHRIST!” Jesse hollered as he fought with a sentient, light blue, inky, material that was trying to strangle him with its tendrils while Jesse pushed to keep the main body away from his skin. He was only wearing his brown rodeo boxers and Jack was too desensitized to nudity that he didn’t blink as the fighting continued.

“Oh! You found a match already?” Jack smiled as he leaned back against the wall, Gabriel shifting the outfit back to the black, hooded, fleece blanket and tucked the ends under Jack’s hands when he crossed his arms over his chest.

Jesse shot a glare at Jack before his blue battle robe tripped his leg out from under him and pinned him down to the ground. He kept shoving the mass away from his chest to keep it at bay and tried to find purchase on the ground with his feet. Gabriel and Jack were both mutually amused by this sight nostalgically remembering their own encounter a year ago when Jack put Gabriel on.

“THE HELL, JACK?! I TRY BEIN’ NICE AND WEAR ‘EM AROUND THE HALLS AND HE TRIES TO STRANGLE ME!” Jesse spats as he glares up at Jack.

“Right. But do you remember the part of the presentation where they tell you that each combat robe has it’s own unique personality and that you might be limited in what you can do with it because of that? Yeah. This is what they’re talking about, McCree.” Jack explains as he gestures to the wrestling match Jesse is having with his combat robe. “Even Gabe wouldn’t let me wear him around when we first met. It took maybe a month or two to get his trust, regardless that he picked me to be his wearer.”

“That would have been a nice detail to KNOW before hand!”

“What part of ‘Gabe went through seventy-five partners’ did you not understand, McCree? It’s a lesson that the combat robes have preferences and are capable of independant thought like you and me.” He explained with a sigh. “Maybe he didn’t like you parading him around the compound, regardless of your intent on giving him some fresh air.”

“Then what SHOULD I do to get him to trust me?!” Jesse hissed as a tendril came up and slapped his cheek hard, leaving a red welt behind.

This guy is a riot, Jack. I take back what I said about him before if that guy is gonna be his partner. 

“Gabe, Shh.” Jack whispered to his smug companion before looking back at Jesse still struggling to keep his combat robe off him. “Well. Figuring out his history would be a good first step, if he had any previous partners, that is. Talking to him is also an option but his ability to communicate back with you is rather limited since he can’t talk.”

Wait. What?

Jack kept rolling off advice to Jesse as Gabriel was hit with the confirmation of the uncomfortable truth Gabe had been trying to deny. Jack really couldn’t hear his voice? That was why he joined up with Jack in the first place! Gabriel was crushed and Jack said it so casually like he was the only one out of the loop this whole time. Honestly he was. He was such an idiot.

A gentle hand came to the cloth on Jack’s shoulder and Gabriel realized Jack had stopped talking at some point.

“Gabe? You feeling okay?” He asked gently, his hand rubbing the fabric in slow circles. Jesse and his combat robe stopped fighting in that moment and he could feel their eyes on him. Jack was just caressing and consoling him while two others watched, it was embarrassing. “Did something I say hurt you?”

… Yes. I just thought you could hear me this whole time but it’s stupid. I’m stupid.

“Whatever you’re upset about, just know that I can feel your emotions, Gabe. I’m sorry for hurting you.”

“Wait? Ya can feel his heart?” Jesse asked carefully.

Jack nodded as he kept rubbing the fleece over his shoulder. “Yeah. Stuff like pain, pleasure, anger, and affection I can feel as clear as day from him. Gabriel doesn’t hide his feelings from me and I… W-well, I’m pretty sure I have a good idea of what he wants to say, is what I’m saying.” Jack chuckled in embarrassment, his cheeks flushing pink as he held Gabriel closer to his body.

Jesse sat up, not even realizing that the robe was slowly wrapping around him and reforming into a simple t-shirt and shorts to cover him as he looked at Jack almost enviously. “So, that’s why the instructors were so eager to call you both ‘seventy-six’. I was mighty confused that they collectively referred to you both as that rather than you as Jack and him as ‘seventy-six’.”

Jack chuckled fondly at that. “It feels right, doesn’t it, Gabe? You and I sharing one name.”

Jesse flushed at that for some reason and Gabriel just wasn’t exactly sure how to interpret Jack’s meaning for once. Humans shared last names when they wanted to be identified together as a couple, right? Can that even work for them? No, he had to just be talking about them as a unit. Gabriel wasn’t a person and never would be.

“Oh!” Jesse finally realized that his combat robe put him in a very plain but useful outfit. The cowboy smiled as he brought a hand up to gently pat his chest. “Thanks a lot, Partner! I was gettin’ pretty chilly, wasn’t I?”

Jack pushed himself off the wall and walked over to offer Jesse a hand to help pull him upright. “Huh. Maybe your combat robe appreciates quiet environments? Might be a good starting point to build up a relationship.” He patted Jesse on the back as the cowboy frowned a bit at that. Maybe he would take a bit to adjust to what his robes needed but at least it wasn’t full out rejecting him like earlier.

“I guess I better head back to my room and make a game plan, huh?”

“It would be rather ideal, if you ask me. Better to find out what your middle ground is sooner than later if you don’t want to get killed on deployment.”

Jesse sighed and ran a hand through his brown hair. “I’ll get workin’ on it. Thanks for letting us work off some steam in your room, Jack. The guys said you were really good at doin’ that for some reason.” He winked at Jack and Gabriel shot a tendril out to crack him on the back of the head as Jack was covering his flushing face with his hands. “OW!! THE HELL?!”


	2. Makes Me So Blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like we're now a chapter fic, Baby!
> 
> Thanks for all the comments and kudos encouraging the one shot be turned into a chapter fic!

Gabriel was in a rut. Jack, the one human for him, could not hear his voice like Gabriel originally thought he could. His wearer was very intune with his feelings and interpreting them but it felt like a cheap imitation of a real relationship. Kind of fitting for a monster like him who could only imitate clothing. 

He did everything Jack commanded him to do but with a lack of gusto he usually added in. It was still giving his one hundred percent to ensure Jack’s well-being and everything but he had no drive to go above and beyond anymore. He couldn't make Jack happy if he wasn't happy, it was that simple.

Apparently, Gabriel having the emotional flexibility of a slice of bread, regardless of his stellar work ethic, was a big enough problem that he took him right to the scientists that worked on Gabriel and his siblings. Jack fucking pulled out the big guns to get the big guys to sit down with him so he could explain the situation to the-now curious scientists in the room.

“We’ve always known that 76 was an eccentric combat robe and a lot more capable of independent thought processes than the others but to say he is ‘suffering from depression’ is a rather new one for us, Mr. Morrison.” One of the older male scientist spoke after they let Jack explain his issues with Gabriel. “The combat robes are capable of feelings such as joy and anger but sadness is not something they should ever feel.”

Gee. Thanks, Doc. Glad to know I’m a fucking disappointment in your eyes as well.

Jack frowned and huddled Gabriel’s idle jacket form around him tighter, even if he had him zipped up and everything. Gabriel wasn't going to literally fall to pieces but his partner sure seemed certain that it might happen if he didn't keep him on 24/7 since Jack gave him the big reveal a few days ago to Jesse. He was such a worrywart, it was almost exhausting for Gabriel to keep a barrier between them by trying to let nothing get to him. Making a depressed person more exhausted probably does not help them out but Gabriel wasn't exactly well acquainted with the emotion well enough to know to that. 

It made Jack hyper focus on him and that meant he was too busy or too emotionally exhausted at the end of the day to have sex with his stallions.

Okay. That might backfire hard in Gabriel's face he continued to stonewall him for that reason. But it honestly hurt that they couldn't talk when Gabriel was more than capable of holding a conversation. He just didn't have a neural link up or a vocal processor to hold a conversation internally or externally of Jack’s body. Thinking about it in detail like that just made Gabriel feel heavier and not in a fabric sort of way.

“Is there someway to make it possible for him to communicate with me? I think it’s the cause of his depression, Doctors.” Jack spoke confidently.

The scientists just looked at each other skeptically and whispered quietly for a few minutes amongst themselves as Jack waited. 

The older doctor frowned as he was elected to talk to Jack again. “No. It would invalidate the whole purpose of having combat robes in the first place if they had the capacity to communicate outside of emotional intelligence. Any ability to communicate makes the likelihood of a breach that much more likely considering they are simple creatures capable over very complex tasks that are highly secretive in nature, Mr. Morrison. While we do wholeheartedly support combat robes and Theo wearers caring for the safety and well-being of one another, we cannot give them the capacity for speech. I am truly sorry about your situation and hope you find a way to help your robe in a way that will not compromise our work.”

\--

“Okay. Try again, Gabe. Sign an ‘A’ for me.” 

Jack spoke encouragingly to Gabriel as he laid on the opposite side of the bed in his jacket form. His wearer had the strange idea of teaching him something called ‘sign language’ even though Gabe could not replicate a hand with the tendrils he had wiggling out of the coat fabric. It wasn't quite sure how slowly teaching him a foreign language was going to help him communicate with Jack during battle or something but whatever. If Jack wanted him to learn then he’ll give it a shot.

He could do without the peanut gallery though.

Jesse McCree was sitting on the floor with his combat robe sitting in its ‘ink’ form in his lap, apparently ‘tired’ of impersonating a hat for his wearer. Both him and Jack wore plain t-shirts and shorts as Jack held the children’s sign language book up for Gabriel to mimic on the bed. Gabriel had five small tendrils hovering out of his jacket form, trying to line them up just like the hand in the picture book to make it look passing. It ended up looking like a mess to Gabriel so he passed on the hand imitation and instead curled one tendril to make a cursive ‘A’.

Jesse gave an impressed whistle at the action but Jack’s smile turned to a frown as he pinched the bridge of his nose. The cowboy looked up at Jack in offense before pointing to Gabriel on the bed. “What’s wrong with that? Looks like a perfectly good ‘A’ to me, Jack!”

Jack didn't bother to look at him. “Sign ‘Jack’ for me, Gabe.”

Gabriel did as instructed while Jesse watched him expertly spell the words in lowercase cursive since that was all he cared to learn about that way of writing.

“‘J. O. C. K.’ Wait a minute.” Jesse looked up at Jack and the blonde nodded his head. 

“Gabe favors cursive for some reason and he signs so fast that it's easy to mistake his ‘o’s for ‘a’s. It doesn't help he ALSO likes using his… ‘Tens’ to mimic head gestures like nodding for ‘yes’ and ‘no’ then quickly try to clarify with signing. It’s a mess. I never know when he’s gesturing or trying to talk.” Jack sighed as he pressed a palm to his forehead while hanging head.

Well, ex-fucking-cuse me, Sweetheart, but you have a fucking body and a face while I have only myself to work with! Also ‘tens’?! Call them tentacles loud and proud cause they’ve been down your dick and put your ass more times than I can count for you to wuss out like that a blushing virgin! The things I put up with for you, Jack Morrison, I swear.

“What about havin’ him write in yer palm? Maybe that might be quicker than him visibly spelling it out for ya?” Jesse offered.

Jack pondered that for a few moments before setting down the book and crawling over to scoop Gabriel up from the end of the bed. He went back to his spot by his pillows and laid back against the wall as he laid Gabriel over his lap. Jack then offered a hand for a tendril to affectionately wrap around his wrist before Gabriel tried writing in his hand. 

“Um… A bit slower, Gabe. Bare with me on this one.” Jack chuckled sheepishly as the tendril made a ballpoint tip like a pen and slowly started to spell out words for him. “Let’s see. ‘J. A. C. K.’” He looked down at another tendril that protruded out of the coat and it nodded it’s tip in a ‘yes’ confirmation. Jack smiled fondly at that. “Spell your name, Gabe. G. A. B. R. I. E. L. Got that?”

That’s how you spell it? Bout time I learned how to spell something other than your name.

Regardless of Gabriel’s huffines, he slowly started spelling his name in Jack’s palm, making a few errors on the ‘i’ and ‘e’ placement a few times before getting it right. The smile on Jack’s face and the encouragement he gave Gabriel was more than enough to keep him pedaling through his first spelling lessons.

“You did great, Gabe! High five!” Jack laughed as he held his palm up, waiting for Gabriel to quickly form a paddle shaped tendril and smack it against’s Jack’s hand. “Nice! You’re getting quicker at that!”

If I could not do such a simple task then I would be an embarrassment, Jack. Could you at least not say that shit around the cowboy and that lard of ink in his lap?

Speaking of the ‘lard of ink’, Jesse didn’t even notice that the moody blob was actually tolerating the hand Jesse was stroking it with, like he wasn’t a combat robe but more of a house cat. For a combat robe who seemed to hate doing anything his wearer wanted him to do he was awfully content on being given affection from the cowboy he ‘despised’. Just to be a cheeky shit, Gabriel reformed the paddle to that of a thin tendril and curved the tip so he made a gesture of a head turning to look down at Jesse. Jack followed the gaze and saw Jesse looking up at him curiously along with the hand that was unaware that the combat robe was letting it be pet with. 

“Oh wow! Looks like you’re making gains with your own partner, Jesse.” Jack smiled as he point to the scene on his lap.

Jesse looked down at his lap and paused at the sight before smiling brightly. “Would ya look at that! I didn’t know ya liked massages, Rattlesnake!” He immediately got his hand jabbed with spiky tendrils that shot out from the blob when he went back down to touch it again and shook his hand with a pout as he pulled it quickly away. “Ow! Was it somethin’ I said?!”

“Probably.” Jack spoke.

Ditto.

\--

An hour after Jesse left to go bond more with his combat robe in the simulation room, Jack put Gabriel on him and walked about the room as they practiced having a conversation. Jack was all smiles as they conversed, sticking mostly to ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions since Gabriel’s spelling vocabulary was very limited at the moment. It was almost cathartic to have a chance to speak to Jack even if it wasn’t exactly the way Gabriel had always imagined.

“Do you like Jesse?” Jack asked curiously, continuing to go down the list of people Jack and him knew to gauge his opinion on them. Most of them were ‘No’s, for no surprise at all considering Gabriel was worn by practically everyone at one time or another.

‘Yes’, Gabriel wrote on Jack’s palm from the tendril he extended from the inside of the coat sleeve, drawing a pleased smile on Jack’s face for that.

“Yeah. Jesse’s a bit of a nutter but he’s fun to have around. Makes the atmosphere a lot lighter, right?”

‘Yes’.

Jack chuckled at that and used the hand Gabriel was not using to communicate with him to hug the front of Gabriel’s coat form closer to his body in a show of affection. The warmth that radiated off of Jack as he held him tightly made Gabriel almost blissful in how happy he was. But that moment was soon spoiled when they heard a knock on the door and Jack went over to go open it.

Owen, one of Jack’s other stallions in SEP, leaned against the door with a smug grin on his face. “You wanted to see me, Jackie?” Jack’s muscular senior asked with a purr as Jack’s face flushed up considerably at that.  
‘No’, Gabriel wrote on Jack’s palm quickly, apparently startling him to make him jump up a bit at the touch.

“Y-yeah! Come in, Owen!” Jack chuckled sheepishly as he opened the door for the shorter, bronzed blonde god that was Owen and quickly locked the door behind him after he stepped in.

“I heard you’ve been feeling rather gloom lately, Jackie.” Owen smiled reassuringly as he gently placed a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “You want to talk about it first?”

Gabriel wanted to rip that hand off of THEIR shoulder and stuff it right down the urethra of the stallion for interrupting their bonding session. There was no way Jack was not feeling Gabriel’s anger at the situation or him constantly writing ‘no’ over and over on Jack’s palm. This was THEIR moment! They were having so much fun talking together for the first time and this asshole was ruining it!

“It’s fine now, Owen. Gabe was feeling a bit down and I figured out the cause, is all.” Jack smiled as he tucked his palms nervously into his jacket pockets. “Thanks for coming.”

“No problem, Jackie.” Owen smiled kindly before turning to head over to the bed and start undressing. “Take your time today with Gabe.”

Jack chuckled nervously as he turned to head over to the closet where Gabriel’s hanger was awaiting him.

‘No’, Gabriel wrote over and over more frantically on Jack’s palm. ‘No, no, no!’

Gabriel never wanted to cockblock Jack but after days of Jack wearing him all the time and trying so hard to solve their problem he dreaded the hanger. He loved Jack but apparently Jack’s desire for stress-relief after several days of putting up with Gabriel’s nonsense came above Gabriel’s need to be with him more.

“Gabe. It’s going to be okay, alright?” Jack whispered to him reassuringly, running his fingers over the front of the fabric lovingly like he did when Gabriel was feeling like total shit. “It’s just for a little bit and we can talk more. Would that be okay?”

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair how sweet Jack was reassuring him and that Gabe knew it was the honest truth. Jack had no feelings towards the stallions but Gabriel couldn’t help but want to wrap the tendril he was communicating with his wearer to wrap around his thumb.

Please don’t go, Jack. I can make you happy. Please don’t do this to me. I love you so much.

In the end, Jack had to unzipper Gabriel and take him off rather than Gabriel doing the action on his own accord. Jack hung him up on the hanger and watched him start to undress as he headed back over to the bed where his stallion awaited.

After some affectionate foreplay by Owen, Jack was laid down on his back on the bed, his legs on the stallions’ shoulders as he lined up his throbbing cock to Jack’s hole. Gabriel extended a tendril from the black fabric hopelessly towards Jack, unable to get further than a few inches without being on his wearer’s body. Jack threw his head back with a moan as Owen’s cock slid in bit by bit, the stallion allowing him to slowly adjust to his size. Gabriel did the only thing he could to try to get Jack’s attention again, even if his wearer’s focused solely on the pleasure he was being given by the other man.

‘Jack’, Gabriel signed over and over.

Jack’s hands clenched on the sheets below him as he started to whine, finally being fucked by the stallion like he wanted.

Still, Gabriel continued to sign Jack name over and over in lowercase cursive. 

He continued to do so until the pain Gabriel felt was enough to cause him to retract the tendril back inside the jacket. Gabriel walled himself up and tried to ignore Jack’s moans for the rest of the session.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave comments on what you think!
> 
> You can follow me at http://mercy-for-old-soldiers.tumblr.com/


	3. Good To Me

No matter how Gabriel felt the previous night when Jack took Owen into his room, he didn’t let it get in his way when they were deployed with Jesse to the battlefield. Even if Jack was too worn out to talk to him again like he promised, Gabriel was alert and sharp while Jack was busy talking to Jesse to calm him down on the airship. Their goal today was to cover a team going in to destroy a rogue omnium and Gabriel couldn’t wait to have something to take his pent up anger on. 

They were told to suit up when the harness that held them down in the ship came off and Jack stood up, looking down at Gabriel’s idle jacket form with adoration. A hand came up to run over the black leather fabric before he traced his fingers down the red stripe that angled downwards towards the zipper. It was very much indeed their own ‘prayer for safety’ and Jesse watched in curiosity as Jack suddenly struck a pose; feet apart, shoulders straight and a fist raised up in front of him.

“Ready, Gabe?! TRANSFORM!”

Nerd.

Snide remarks from Gabriel aside, the thick black jacket with the red number ‘76’ on the back reverted to black in before tendrils, several feet in length, explode out from the center. The clothing Jack wore under Gabriel was converted into energy, making Jack naked as the tendrils robed down his body to cover him entirely to make the barrier before gathering over his feet to snap into a pair of boots, around his ass to make a black pair of booty shorts, and the rest reforming to a much smaller and thinner version of his black ‘76’ jacket. A pulse rifle was weaved into his arms right after, drawing fabric from the jacket and the shorts to leave Jack in a black thong along with most of his chest being out for show as the tiny jacket laid open.

Jack sighed in relief as he set the pulse rifle down on the ground and brought his hand up to affectionately rub the silk-thin cloth of the jacket. “Thanks for not pulling so hard this time, Gabe.”

No problem, Jack. I got your six.

“Holy shit!” 

Jack lifted up the rifle and rest it against his shoulder as he turned around to see a red-faced Jesse gawking at him as the rest of the soldier were already in their combat-mode forms, sans McCree. Jack and Gabriel were amused by this and Gabriel didn't feel a bit of jealousy as Jack clearly enjoyed the attention cause hell yeah Gabriel looked good on Jack’s body.

“McCree!” The commander barked as the ship touched down on the ground. “Suit up already!!”

Jesse shot straight up with his heels together as he saluted nervously. “Yes, Sir!” he then reach up to grab his cowboy hat, likely his combat robe’s idle form, and pressed it to his chest before clearing his throat. “P-please transform!” Jesse yelled nervously and everyone in the ship couldn't help but feel pity for the poor rookie. Apparently, the combat robe felt the same and the hat turned to an inky blue before the tendrils shot out around his body. 

By the end of it, Jesse McCree was visibly sweating and on all fours against the floor when the transformation was over. He was panting heavily and his skin red from how rough his combat robe was after the shielding process was complete and he was forming the outfit. Jesse was wearing something akin to a slightly classier cowboy stripper’s outfit; Brown ass-less chaps that were intricately woven to sport designs of a dragon in a dust devil in the desert, black, silk panties, bare chest with a lovely white vest embroidered with more wild west imagery in the fabric, a holster for a six-shooter pistol, plain brown boots and an aged stetson on his head to top it off. Everyone crowded around Jesse, whispering and whistling softly at how detailed the outfit had rather simple shapes to it. It was kind of like how a male peacock flaunting its feathers to the rather dull brown females when attracting a mate. 

Jack quickly dragged a winded Jesse to his feet with his free hand as the commander came over and kept an arm behind him to steady him. He and Gabriel relaxed a bit as the commander handed Jesse styrofoam cup of water and a large protein bar.

“Morrison, you deploy with McCree once he’s recovered from fatigue. The rest of you move out!” He barked before turning to return to his command post while Jack helped guide Jesse back to his seat.

“Thanks, Jack.” Jesse chuckled nervously as Jack opened the packaging for him and took a few sips from the cup while he continued to trembly slightly in his seat.

“This can't be your first suit up, Jesse. They wouldn't let you on the airship if that was the case. What’s going on?” Jack asked as he watched Jesse take small bites of his protein bar.

“I dunno, Jack.” Jesse sighs as he lays his head back against the headrest for the seat. “The suit up process went flawlessly before this but Dragon went ahead and changed up the outfit entirely without my knowledge. Doesn't help he was extra rough with the shielding process and jabbing the entire time.”

Yeah. That definitely sounds like peacocking to Gabriel. 

“Gabe did the same thing when we first started out, Jesse. He didn't settle on an outfit until maybe our fourth mission together? Though I gotta say the white trim on your vest plus the fur on your collar is going to get you shot at the moment you step outside.”

“I’m not the one who went with this ridiculous ‘sky dragon’ ensemble, Jack!” He huffed as he took a big bit out of the bar, feeling a lot better Jack supposed.

“I was talking to ‘Dragon’ actually. Combat robes can use the feedback to adjust as needed, Jesse. You just got to tell them.”

Jesse rolled his eyes and shoved another bite of food into his mouth to chew on before swallowing. “I reckon I’d have an easier time talkin’ to a mule.” He grumbled before a tendril came out from the vest and jabbed him in the gut. “Ow! Fuckin’ stop!”

He’s going to die if he goes out, Jack. No way his shield will hold up under heavy focus fire that he will no doubt attract.

Jack frowned as he felt the same way but no doubt didn't want to say it in the obvious way Gabriel was feeling.

“You think you can try to talk to him, Gabe?” Jack whispered to his shoulder and reluctantly Gabriel agreed it was worth a shot. 

But how should he approach this guy? Especially since he was a rather …eccentric character. Carefully would probably be the best way.

Hey, your name is ‘Dragon’, right? Can we talk for a moment? Sibling to sibling?

Gabriel felt the focus of Jesse’s battle robe fall onto himself and instantly he felt the haughty high and mighty attitude McCree had to put up with.

‘Siblings’? You and I? Hardly. Your creation date significantly older than mine and you smell of human filth. It would be an insult to call us ‘brothers’.

Jesus Christ. Not even HE was this bad and Gabriel was the one who went through seventy five human partners! Also, what the fuck was wrong with smelling like a human?! He couldn't smell jack shit if he could, newer production number or not! Unless he knows that him and Jack have sex but taking issue with THAT was the most backwards logic for a combat robe that needed to be comfortable with- wait a second!

Holy shit.

What? What are you going on about?!

You haven't a clue how to approach the cowboy for sex, that’s what. Hense why you did the whole ‘peacock’ thing to show off how superior you are to the rest of our siblings! You’re insecure!

… Are you insane?

I’ll give you some tips on how to get the cowboy to notice you if you tone down your plumage display, Dragon. Alright?

My name is not ‘Dragon’! The cowboy changes my name every hour of the day!

I’ll give you tips on that as well if you work with me here. What you look like now will get your wearer and yourself killed out there. This is NOTHING like the training sim, alright? Go with darker colors so he blends in more. Save the fun flair for when he wears you around out of combat.

‘Darker colors’ you say? Hmm…

Jesse’s vest was reduced to that of a typical brown leather one with no added frills other than the dark red bandana that now hung around his neck neatly. The cowboy whistled at the sight and smiled as he reached down and ran his fingers over the red bandana. “Not bad, Dragon. I like it.” 

Tell him I want the name ‘Hanzo’.

Sure. I’ll let Jack tell him when I learn to spell it in human. Thanks for working with us on this.

You say ‘us’ but I’m only talking to you, Black One.

‘Gabriel’. Also Jack and me are one unit. When you speak to me you are also speaking to Jack. 

You invest great trust in this Jack. 

He does the same with me.

Does he really? Your production number is old enough that you may not actually be ‘you’ like when you started out.

Reconditioning does not matter. Jack will always have my six no matter what. I don't fear reconditioning anymore.

Hanzo went silent at that and Gabriel just ignored the implications. Fear was nonexistent when Jack was his partner. He would always come back to him no matter the number of stallion he has. Jack was his and he was Jack’s.

“You ready, McCree?” The commander asked as he walked back over to Jack and Jesse. 

“Ready for action, Sir!” Jesse answered enthusiastically as he shot up and saluted.

“Get going then, Gentlemen! Best of luck!”

“Sir!” Jesse and Jack answered as they saluted him together before departing with weapons at the ready.

\--

Jack and Jesse were out like a light when they came back to the airship with the rest of the team, barely able to pull the harnesses for their seats. There was more running and gunning than they expected but the omnium was destroyed with a beautiful blast as the ship took off. 

Gabriel shifted from the combat form to the black fleece blanket and black boxers under them just in case as Jack slept tighter than a bug in a rug. The ship was rather cold, in Gabriel's opinion, not just because Jack fell asleep. Hanzo merely shifted the outfit to a coat and jeans for Jesse, skipping out on the hat while the cowboy was fast asleep.

Gabriel felt Hanzo’s attention on him again and felt his younger sibling looking at him more curiously this time.

Need something?

A blanket? Do you not have any pride as a combat robe?

Any hesitation I had about public displays of affection went out the door by week two, Hanzo. I honestly don't give a rat’s ass about what you or anyone else thinks.

It’s precisely why you’ll be reconditioned. Time and time again, ‘Brother’.

You don't know shit about me, Asshole! 

I know enough by simple observation to know that you’ll be reconditioned the moment they find out Jack is teaching you to communicate with him.

As if anyone will notice me writing on his palm. All combat robes feel up their wearers, it’s common logic here! 

Your desire to please yourself and your wearer will end with your reconditioning. You are acting out of line and you will get caught. 

Consider my offers for advice to be officially canceled, Asshole.

I do not need them because my relationship with the cowboy will stay proper, unlike your's.

Jack and I were flanking McCree the entire time, you were intentionally shrinking the size of his panties to get a rise out of him!

The conversation ended there but Gabriel knew he won. It wouldn't be long until the ‘proper’ battle robe started experimenting with his partner as well. Maybe that will drag him down a peg or two then.

\--

Jack sat on the chair in his room naked after making sure the door was locked and pulled Gabriel on in his jacket form one sleeve at a time slowly before zipping it up. Gabriel wasn't exactly sure what Jack wanted or even gained from sitting on the chair pantless until he felt Jack’s finger slowly run their way up the seams of the jacket. He internally shivered at the touch but would not let a single tendril sprout from the black leather until Jack gave him verbal consent. For all Gabe knew, maybe Jack just wanted to be naked and affectionate towards him? Safer to assume that than be sorry.

“You seem hesitant today, Gabe. Need me to spell it out?” Jack purred as he continued to trail his fingers over the front of the jacket as if it was one of his stallion’s bodies, not the affectionate touches like he was used to. A tendril coiled into Jack’s palm and answered his question.

‘Yes’.

Jack got that lewd smile on his face and Gabriel was very much intrigued by what he was going to say. He got up from the chair and began walking over to the bed, Jack’s fingers continuing to run up and down sensually over his seams in the jacket. Gabriel was almost ninety-nine percent sure what Jack had in mind as he climbed up onto the bed and rolled over onto his back.

“You’ve been so patient with me, Gabriel.” He purred with his husky voice, getting comfortable on the bed by resting the back of his head against the pillow. “I was thinking about giving the other guys a break this week and having us spend some more quality time together. No one else gets to have me but you.”

The tendril on his palm excitedly wrote ‘yes’ over and over, drawing a huge grin from Jack after he released a sigh of relief. What was he so nervous about? Of course Gabriel would love to be Jack’s sole sexual partner for an entire fucking week. Holy shit that would be better than his quarterly cleaning by the science staff! Gabriel was trembling from the overwhelming joy he was experiencing and extended another tendril down from the other sleeve to write ‘yes’ over and over on his other palm too.

Jack let out a husky chuckle, folding his finger gently over the tendrils to still their enthusiasm. “I’m going to teach you to spell some words that make me feel really good in bed, Gabe. But you have to promise not to use them outside of the room, alright? Just these ones specifically.”

Anything to please you, Jack! I’ll write them as many times as you want! Just for you!

Jack sucked in a slight breath and nipped on his lower lip as he thought about where to start. “Alright. The first word is ‘hard’, ‘H. A. R. D.” His cheeks were red in shame as Gabriel gently repeated the spelling into his palm. “An example would be ‘I get hard thinking about you, Gabe’.” Jack trailed a hand down to his throbbing erection and grasped it, knowing full well that it would brush up against the tendril in his palm. “This is what I mean by ‘hard’ in this particular context.”

Gabriel reduced the coat to black ink and teasingly sent out the tendrils over Jack’s body, the one that was pressed between his cock and palm wrapped around it in a spiral. Other tendrils pulled his hand away from his cock by wrapping gently around his wrist and pulling it up along with the other one so they were pinned above his head on the pillow. Jack’s cock throbbed at the action and swallowed hard as he arched his back against the mattress to better let the tendrils snaking down his back move and grope at his flesh more freely. He was beautiful when he let Gabriel tend to him in the way his stallions could not, gently massaging his body with every rise and fall of his chest.

“Next word is ‘cock’, ‘C. O. C. K.’. That’s what you pulled my hand away from, what gets hard when I think of you doing these things to me, Gabe.” Jack shuddered, feeling Gabriel weave his tendrils down his firm thighs all the way down to his toes. With the pleasure cage set up over Jack’s body, Gabriel used the tendrils in his blonde hair to massage his lovely wearer, helping him relax from the anxiety of being ‘trapped’ and letting him know he was safe. Gabe would never lock his body down for any reason but Jack’s own pleasure and helping him get over the instinctive fear he could feel from his wearer was always the first step.

“You’re so good to me, Gabe.” Jack whispered. 

Gabriel carefully ran some thin tendrils up the sides of Jack’s neck and took excellent care not to cover his throat or pumping arteries under the flesh out of fear for his safety, sticking mainly to the back of the side of his neck. Once they were over that part, they pooled together over the line of Jack’s jaw before branching upwards to gently trace the folds on his lower lip curiously. Humans pressed their lips together to show affection, right? Jack always told his stallions that his face was off-limits aside from his forehead but…

Jack took a sharp breath through his teeth and the tendrils immediately shot away from his lips and back to the pool on his jaw. Shit. Shit. SHIT! He made Jack uncomfortabl-!

“W-wait…!” Jack quickly spoke up in surprise from the sudden withdrawal, interrupting Gabriel’s thoughts. “I-! It’s fine, Gabe!” 

Jack’s face was almost completely red as from his neck to the tips of his ears and Gabriel was completely baffled. It was okay for him to touch what he never let anyone else touch? Gabriel hesitantly slid one thing tendril up and over Jack’s chin to carefully approach the pink flesh of his lips. He was nervous. Jack said it was ‘fine’ but did he really mean it? Nervously the tendril gently touched the bottom of Jack’s lip and he wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to do.

“Please, Gabe.” Jack whispered softly and Gabriel felt his warm breath roll over the tendril.

Anything to please you, Jack…

Gabriel experimentally began retracing the folds of Jack’s lip with the tendril with the gentlest of touches, pausing whenever Jack took in a sudden breath or closed his mouth. Why was he being so shaky about this? Jack said it was okay! Gabriel was over thinking that this meant something significant. That Jack might be… Might be…

“More please.” Jack whispered softly to him. “Cover them.”

Gabriel ran more tendrils up from the pool on Jack’s jaw to move it all upwards and over his lips. He was a bit nervous about sealing the gap between Jack’s lips until he stupidly remembered that Jack had a functioning nose that he could breath through as well. Gabriel heard the muffled moans from Jack as he arched his back against the firm black ink cage that was himself and curiously made the pool over his wearer’s lips more firm. His heart skipped a beat as he felt Jack pressing his lips back against the pool and now he was wondering if Jack wanted to speak or… Was he kissing him back?

Jack’s body was warm against the cage, his cock throbbing and spouting a bead of precum to roll down the front of his penis over the tendril that held it steady. He was very aroused by this and all he was doing was apply firm counter pressure to Jack’s lips. Eventually, Gabriel wanted to hear from Jack, just to make sure he was okay and pushed the pools to the corners of his lips so he could speak freely. Jack was panting softly, his eyes glassy before he closed them again. God, he was so beautiful.

“I want you, Gabe…!” Jack whimpered shamelessly to his partner. “I want you on my tongue and inside my ass…!”

This man should be illegal for how badly he could mess with a combat robe’s sanity. The black veins holding Jack’s legs in place spread him apart slowly and angled his legs upwards to expose his ass. Jack pushed his head backwards against the pillow, unable to reliably arch his back as Gabriel slowly locked his legs into the exposing position, taking care to pool some tendrils under Jack’s lower back for support since his legs had nothing to hook onto to displace his weight. One tendril reached out to wrap around the lubricant bottle on the nightstand, pulling it back to where Jack could see him flipping the cap open with a smaller tendril and then watch Gabriel slowly drip it onto a separate tendril. 

“Gabe…! Come on…!” 

So eager for the main show and we’re only just halfway through set up, Jack.

Gabriel teasingly tangled some thin tendrils between Jack’s pubes, pulling them taught as a shamelessly loud gasp came from Jack’s lips. Just to further his torment, Gabriel slithered two tendrils back up Jack’s chest to coil slowly around Jack’s erect nipples to draw a whimper from the blonde he loved so much. He made sure not to move the tendril holding Jack’s penis as he branched off a connecting tendril to securely wrap around his balls and hold them in place.

“Gabe!”

You’re so beautiful when you let me hurt you in a way that gives you immense pleasure, Jack.

He continued to apply pressure to the bottle to continue the lewd dripping of lube to the tendril, enjoying the way Jack trembled in his cage, against Gabriel’s form as he denied him any relief. Jack pulled on his restraints and Gabriel merely locked the tendril into place, keeping the ones binding his wrists together a bit more flexible as to not cause discomfort. He could squirm his hands but the tendril pinning them in place would not move for the world until Gabe was done with him.

Having enough lubricant to now finally proceed, Gabe slapped the cap back in place before tossing it aside and retracted the tendrils back into the pool under Jack’s back. Jack was licking his lips in anticipation, intentionally prodding the pools that laid dormant by the corner of his lips and drawing them out. That tongue seemed to be awfully loose compared to the rest of Jack’s body and Gabriel happily let them follow the tongue back through Jack’s lips into his mouth. Jack moaned as the tendrils slid and teased the interior of his mouth, roaming over tongue and gums to find the places his wearer would never let anyone else explore. 

Gabriel wondered if Jack would enjoy fucking him if he had a human body. Would HE enjoy it? Jack certainly did but Jack never exactly fucked one of his stallions. Would they both feel good? Would Jack let Gabe kiss him or would he push him away like his stallions when they try to do so?

“Gabe?”

Jack’s voice drew him out of his thoughts and he realized he had stopped pleasing his wearer in those short seconds he was thinking of himself to the point he retracted the tendril out of his mouth. He was withdrawing from Jack when he should be doing the opposite.

“You’re hesitant? Worried? Your feelings are kind of all over the place.” Jack spoke softly. “Let my hands go for a moment so we can talk?”

Gabriel obeyed, unwinding the tendril that held his wrists together above his head before retracting the ‘bar’ tendril pinning his arms in place back into the pool under Jack’s back. Jack rubbed his wrists lightly for a moment before reaching down to wrap his arms around the cage that laid over his chest and held him. Gabriel felt warmth flow through him at the affection Jack was showing him and he felt much more secure about what he was doing.

“You don’t have to push yourself or do anything you do not want to do to me, Gabe. Just having you eager for me is enough to get me hard.” Jack reassured him quietly, stroking his fingers over the black veins that held him in place aside from his arm and head. “What’s worrying you?”

‘Jack’, Gabriel wrote on Jack’s palm with a tendril delicately.

Jack quirked a brow at the response, possibly not expecting one at all since Gabriel had maybe four words in his writing dictionary. “Me? I have you worried?”

‘Yes’.

Jack frowned at that and laid his head back against the pillow as he thought about what to ask next. Gabriel worried that Jack might be turned off from the conversation in that moment of silence and hesitantly stroked his cock with the tendril wrapped around it.

Please don’t put me on the hanger, Jack. I’m sorry that I mentioned any of this to you. I should have just stayed quiet and given you what you wanted instead of dragging you down with me.

“I can talk and keep my dick hard, Gabe. It’s not too difficult considering the position I’m in.” Jack chuckled softly, his free hand affectionately tracing one of the veins over his abdomen with a finger. “I want to explore different things with you, Gabe. Maybe, some things I never considered with anyone else ever since I met you…”

I don’t exactly have a body to help you explore that kind of thing, Jack. God, if I had a body you wouldn’t need your stallions to get you off with a genuine cock. We could do all the kinky shit you want and I would have absolutely no reservations at all.

“Kiss me, Gabe.” Jack whispered, licking his lips and gently prodding the black pools on the corners of his lips once more. “Kiss and fuck me, please!”

Gabriel was over him as his heart was beating a million miles per-hour, tendrils whipping about excitedly to smack his ass and the pools by his lips sealing over Jack’s lips firmly. Jack’s hands move to the bed sheets, not wanting to pull on Gabriel’s vein, and leaned his head back against the pillow. ‘Kiss’ him? Is that the magic word he was digging for? Was Jack finally baring his heart for him?!

Too over eager to care, Gabriel ceased smacking Jack’s now-tender ass and used the lube he stored up earlier to slick a thick tendril before slowly pushing it into Jack’s asshole. Jack’s muffled moans and whimpers were like music to him, stimulating him to tighten the hold on the veins had over his body along with tugging firmly at his hair and pubes. 

I love you, Jack! Please please please say that this means you want to be mine!

Jack was trying to buck up into the tendril around his cock and Gabriel began to slowly stroke him from top to bottom to please him. He slowly stretched Jack with the tendril inside of Jack’s asshole, widening him just enough so he could start fucking him in and out with it. Jack meant the world to Gabriel and he would see to it that all of Jack’s stress would become undone under his power. 

He was thrashing against his bindings as Gabriel started to intentionally run the tendril fucking him over his prostate, giving Jack what he desired as he also sped up the tendril stroking him off. He was close. So VERY close. Gabriel refocused his attention to Jack’s lip, pressing down on them more firmly like a lover would do when making love. He was surprised that it was what sent Jack over the edge, his wearer’s body shuddering and exerting itself as ribbons of white cum shot deep out of his cock and onto his stomach. Gabriel thrashed the tendril inside of Jack’s ass hard, forcing him to ride out his orgasm as he was practically screaming against the black lips Gabriel sealed over his own until he finally had enough. While Gabriel usually enjoyed over stimulating Jack, he skipped out on that for today’s session as he carefully lowered Jack’s quivering legs down to the mattress and happily absorbed Jack’s semen through the veins for energy conversion later. He slowly eased the grip of the cage over Jack body before converting himself into the black fleece blanket wrapped like a burrito around his wearer for warmth.

Jack’s breath was still shaky as he rolled onto his stomach with the blanket satisfied with a smile on his face.

“So good to me, Gabe…” Jack breathed lightly as he nuzzled his face against the pillow.

I love you so much more than that, Jack Morrison. I want to be more than just ‘good to you’...

“So good…” He murmured as he drifted off to sleep.

Gabriel sprouted one tendril out of the black fleece blanket to gently caress Jack’s cheek affectionately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for the encouragement to keep the inspiration train going, guys!


	4. Forget Me Not

Things didn't progress much farther than Gabriel hoped it would as Jack spent more time with him in his room. Sure he learned to spell more words and indulge Jack in some kinks that even Gabriel didn't know his wearer had but the connection he longed for never came up. Gabriel was still clueless as to spell words of affection that came close to what he wanted to express and he had the feeling Jack was avoiding them on purpose. Jack even asked him not to touch his lips after that one session and it left Gabriel out at sea without a compass.

 

Gabriel didn't understand what he did wrong. Jack told him to kiss him and fucking orgasmed so hard from him focusing on it but he marked it as off-limits after enjoying it so much. Should he be mad that Jack told him ‘no’? Gabriel made sure to only reflect on that issue when Jack was either in the shower or sleeping so he wouldn't be aware of the resentment that pooled inside of him. He loved Jack and his feelings were plain obvious. Why wasn't Jack bringing the topic up and just shooting him down if he didn't feel the same way?!

 

By the end of the week, Gabriel had enough of the constant sex was actually relieved to be handed over for the weekend to get himself pampered and cleaned by the science staff. Doctor Windigo took him from Jack after he hesitantly gave him a gentle stroke of his fingers over the coat fabric one last time before Gabriel happily reduced himself to his ‘ink’ form in the deep tray she places him in. Jack was such a baby thinking that this was anything but a weekend long vacation for him.

 

Gabriel relaxed as the good doctor carried him into the lab after opening up the door with her hand on the sensor. Windigo was the one who created Gabriel, in a way, and always took excellent care of him because he enjoyed working with them. His tray was placed on a conveyer belt and Windigo went to her station at the machine to get ready to give him his detox. Gabriel was giddy as the electrical currents boiled him with the array of micro lasers popping out the impurities that built up inside of him as they floated to the top. Pop pop pop pop! A most relaxing experience even when he felt like they dropped him on the surface of the sun; The lasers zapping away everything was just too relaxing for him to give a shit about the heat.

 

Doctor Windigo chuckled in amusement as the lasers work their magic. “Such high silicon content, 76. Morrison has been having a lot of fun with you lately?”

 

Come on, Doc, who can resist me? I’m a charming and handsome combat robe! To think that Morrison and I are not having a lot of sex would be an understatement of the century. Conflicted feelings aside, of course.

 

Gabriel heard the vacuum sealing machine rev up towards the exit on the machine after he was detoxed and grew a bit nervous as a lid sealed him inside the tray. The vacuum drew out all the air from the tray, making Gabriel expand to fill the whole thing uncomfortably before he reached the outside of the machine. He was immobilized by being stretched to fill all four sides of his container but this was nothing like being stretched over a six foot tall human male for the shielding process; Why was he so uncomfortable?

 

“Ah, 76.” The good doctor clicked her tongue as she carefully picked up the sealed container and began carrying it to the next machine. “I don't know why you keep letting this happen to you over and over. This has to be the fifth time we’ve had to rebalance the chemicals inside of you and straighten you out.”

 

‘Straightened’ me out? What’s wrong with me, Doc? Am I sick? Some long-term illness you and the others aren't filling me in on?

 

“Don’t worry though.” She spoke reassuringly as she gently pat the container with him in it. “I got just the thing that will make you alright. A few cycles and you’ll feel brand new!”

 

Can we talk about this with Jack first? I think that would be a VERY good idea just so we all know what we’re getting into here! It’s reasonable, right?!

 

She cycled him with an oblivious smile on her face for the rest of the weekend.

 

\--

 

Gabriel clung to Jack the moment he came to pick him up on Monday morning. Jack was furious but said nothing as he stomped down the hall with Gabriel unable to hold the form of a jacket like he would usually. He remembered this time. He ACTUALLY remembered what the quarterly scrub was this time. 

 

They were trying to recondition him with the barrage of chemical soaks and literally strip him of something.

 

And they succeeded on some level previously if he could not remember that traumatizing experience before. No wonder Jack was all so hesitant to drop him off; Gabriel lost parts of himself once every four months.

 

Jack slammed the door to his room behind him as Gabriel continued to try vainly to recover his dignity by turning back into the coat instead of being a frail black ink blob in Jack’s arms. His tendrils would not sprout out of him, his own body would not obey the commands he tried to get them to do and reassure Jack that he was okay. Gabriel needed to let Jack know that he was okay and could handle his own problems but everything hurt too much. 

 

Jack slammed his fist back against the wall, denting it heavily as he gritted his teeth and tried to let off his steam in a way that wouldn't hurt anyone. His body trembled in rage as he stomped back and forth across the room, keeping Gabriel close to his chest with gentle arms in contrast. 

 

“You gotta be kid-! Those MOTHERFUCKERS-!” Jack kept growling as he continued his pacing back and forth in the room. Gabriel had never seen Jack so red in the face with anger that he was practically on the verge of crying from how upset he was. He must have felt so helpless letting him go obliviously happy to the scrubs and dealing with the aftermath alone.

 

A frantic knocking on the door pulled both Jack and Gabriel from their thoughts, especially as the knocks turned to full on pounding.

 

“Jack!! Jack open the fucking door!!” 

 

Jack sprinted over to the door and threw it open, his eyes widening as a sobbing Jesse McCree pushed his way in with a blue ink blob in his own arms and quickly closed the door.

 

“The fuck, Jack?! What the fuck did they do to him?! What did they do to Dragon?!” Jesse shouted as he held the blue ink blobbed as closely to his chest as Jack did.

 

“I don't know what exactly they do but the whole ‘scrub’ thing erases part of a combat robe’s memory to keep it loyal to its wearer.” Jack explained as he walked Jesse over to his bed so he could sit down, a lot more calm now since he had to be a good friend and talk clearly to the confused recruit. “Dragon isn't going to feel like himself for at least a few days and you have to be there for him or they’ll cycle him again. He’ll be confused and frustrated with the gaps in his memory but you have to be strong for him. Lie to him if it makes it easier.”

 

Jesse glared at Jack. “How the fuck can you call him yer ‘partner’ if her lyin’ to him!?”

 

“Your synchronization levels suffer after scrubbing? They scrub them again! Jesse, they fucking torture them for one weekend and you’re just going to put Dragon through the same pain twice in such a short period of time?! I almost lost Gabe completely the first time they double scrubbed him!” Jack hammered the knowledge into the furious Jesse and suddenly a lot more things started to click with Gabe. 

 

“But his voice, Jack! I can’t hear it!” Jesse hung his head as he brushed the tears aside that fell down his cheeks. “I just started to hear it and now it’s too quiet in mah head.”

 

Jack tensed up at that and Gabriel felt Jack’s fist clench, thankful he wasn't holding him with that one right now from how hard it was shaking. 

 

“You can't tell them about the voice, Jesse. That means your synchronization is too high and they’ll completely recondition him into a new personality by wiping his slate clean. They’re scared of what happened to the omnics happening to the combat robes too, Jesse.” Jack explained as he sat down on the bed next to Jesse, letting Gabe relax in his lap and keep a warm hand on top of him. 

 

Jesse looked at Jack incredulously before slowly looking back down at Dragon in his arms. “Ya serious…?”

 

Jack frowned and nodded his head once. “It's not just us that this happens to. Eventually all wearers will get to the point where they hear the voice of their combat robe. What they do after that… Sometimes the wearer finds it easier to erase the problem and start from scratch than to deal with… Unwanted affection from something that is not and never will be human.”

 

“That ain't right. How could anyone do that to their partner? The risk their lives for us too.”

 

Jesse had a big heart maybe one too big for the military but Jack was the same except he was really good at keeping it all private. Maybe too much so for Gabriel if he was hiding all this shit from him the entire time no matter how justified it was. Jack looking out for him like this was almost too crushingly depressing for Gabe to really be anything but superficially mad at him for long.

 

“How do you guys deal with it?” Jesse asked quietly as he looked to Jack for hope. “How do guys like us who fear the silence deal with the weekend knowing their partners might lose everything?”

 

Jack’s eyes fell to Gabriel and his hand gently started stroking his form. “By volunteering Gabriel first, the others will have a general idea of how potent the scrub formula was for the cycle. On a more personal level? I simply try to spend as much time as I can with him in the last week and doing what he likes to do. Others withdrawal from their partners and only wear them when they have to or simply pray in the privacy of their rooms for them to get through.

 

It’s tough for those of us who believe them to be our partners and not tools, Jesse. It's best to find a way to grieve privately while they’re away or find alternatives to help you… Not get so attached.”

 

We’re so going to have a long talk after you start hearing my voice in your head about your sexual partners, Jack Morrison. ESPECIALLY after that bit about where you can fucking hear my fucking voice you fucking prick! All of my fucking embarrassing confessions you fucking heard!!

 

“When do you think I’ll hear Dragon’s voice again, Jack?”

 

Jack brought his free hand up to rub the back of his neck as he sighed. “Maybe a day or so? Usually your sync rate shoots back up when they start wanting to cling to you with their tens. The voices usually follow right after.”

 

“Yeah?” Jesse sniffed harshly before smiling down at the blue blob in his lap. “I was worried it might be longer.”

 

“Can’t. Not when we have a war to fight.” Jack spoke, reminding them all of the reality of the situation they were in. Jesse nodded his head and rubbed his eyes with his free hand, the other one keeping Dragon securely to his chest.

 

“Ya think they can hear us?” He asked curiously. “Dragon won’t let me live it down if he saw me sobbin’ like a baby over him, that's for sure.” Jesse chuckled bashfully.

 

“No. They usually start to come back when they start reaching out for your body to anchor them.” Jack answered sadly.

 

Well then! You’re going to a have a lot of surprises coming your way when I get my tentacles on you, Jack Morrison! 

 

My anger first and foremost! 

 

“Would it be okay if Dragon and I stay the night, Jack?” Jesse asked nervously. “I just- Being alone is a lot for me to handle right now.” He confessed.

 

Say ‘yes’, you dick. You sure as fuck need the company too.

 

“Why not? Get your stuff.” Jack smiled as he pat Jesse on the back reassuringly.

 

“Thanks, Jack.” Jesse smiled, getting off the bed with Dragon still dormant in his arms before heading out of the room. Both men feeling a lot better than they originally did. Gabriel couldn't be more pleased with the outcome.


	5. Havin' a talk

Fuck you.

 

Jack sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation as their reunion went quickly from Jack pulling the ‘76’ jacket back on to Gabriel chewing him the fuck out. This had to be the tenth time Gabe told Jack to ‘fuck off’ in the past ten minutes so Gabriel clearly wasn't as mad as he could have been. What a blessing. Not.

 

“You said it for yourself that you heard our whole conversation so you know why I couldn't just say that I knew you could talk to me through a mental link. I even went as far as making an ass of myself in front of the scientist to keep you in the dark, Gabe!” Jack spoke patiently to his partner as he zipped up the front of the coat and tucked his hands into the pockets.

 

You’re still a fucking prick for hearing everything and not saying jackshit, Morrison! You’re not getting out of this that easily! You heard fucking everything!!

 

“Gabe, come on.”

 

I have every fucking right to be mad, you fuckwit! Let me be mad!!

 

“Oh my god.” Jack groaned as he brought a hand out of his pocket to rub his face slowly. He flopped backwards on his bed and let that hand fall to his side as he huffed. “Okay. I admit it was a dick move to not say anything and ignore some of your more… Intimate feelings, alright?”

 

The only things I feel are hate and anger.

 

“Gabe.”

 

Don’t you ‘Gabe’ me, Asshole! You know all the shit you pulled and EXACTLY how I felt about it and you just IGNORED ME! How do you expect me to trust you when I have no fucking mental filter?! You get one but I don’t?!

 

Jack frowned and let his other hand flop out of the pocket onto the bed. Maybe it was cruel to bring up the lack of privacy when Jack couldn't do anything to fix that but him ignoring Gabriel’s feelings was completely valid.

 

Am I a tool to you, Jack Morrison? Cause it certainly felt like it in those ‘iffy’ moments you had where you brush me off.

 

“Gabe… It’s hard to pretend around you. You’re right that I shouldn't have ignored you to go have sex with someone else but I needed help keeping it all under a tight lid and sex was how I coped. I’m sorry.” Jack confessed painfully. “We’re 76. Always.”

 

It still hurts.

 

“I’m glad you were able to hold yourself through the scrub, Gabe. It’s a relief to know nothing got lost this time around.” Jack spoke softly, bringing his hand up hold the front of the coat closer to him. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

 

I’m still mad.

 

“I don't expect you to feel better while we’re still talking about it, Gabe.” 

 

I love you, Jack Morrison. I was afraid I was going to die in those machines.

 

Jack’s grip on the front of the coat tightened as he gritted his teeth. “I don't want to lose you either, you dipshit. But losing you the first time so soon after you confessed- I grow more terrified of saying something cause I can’t handle you being wiped clean again!”

 

He confessed? He was wiped? It wasn't a ‘near’ wipe like he told Jesse but a fucking full recondition? Gabriel was a new personality…?

 

What was the original me like, Jack?

 

Jack’s smile went from its default smile to a cold glare. “I don't want to talk about it.”

 

What?! But it’s me!

 

“Drop it, Gabe.” 

 

Was I the fucking virgin Mary or some shit, Jack Morrison?! Why the hell are you being so-!

 

Jack unzipped the jacket and sat up as he tossed Gabriel to the end of the bed. “I need a shower. I’ll be right back and I’ll talk about anything but that alright?” He sighed heavily as he ran a hand through his greasy blond hair. Jack padded his way over to the bathroom and closed the door behind him, leaving Gabriel to sulk on the bed.

 

Fucking jackass tells him he was reconditioned once and won’t tell him what he was like before! Who does that kind of thing to a person?! Is it because Gabriel wasn't a person that Jack felt compelled to keep a lid on that topic to keep him loyal? Fuck that shit. Gabriel could have been a literal fucking saint and it would change his attitude one fucking bit. He loved being an asshole!

 

Maybe Jack was afraid he would have lingering feelings from that time or something? Hell, Jack heard all his fucking confessions already so it’s not like his first personality was further along than he was right now. Jack’s just being overly defensive prick and keeping him in the dark for no fucking reason. That had to be it.

 

Jack came back out with a towel around his head and hips as he stepped out of the steaming bathro- How hot did he have the shower if that much steam was rolling out the door?! Wasn't it the middle of summer right now too?! Did he burn himself?! Gabriel inch-long tendrils flailed to get Jack’s attention as the stretched as far as they could from the coat without Jack wearing him and hoped it would work. His skin was going to dry out and he would be scratching himself for the rest of the day since it was still in the morning. Fucking idiot did not know about the magic that was skin lotion apparently!

 

Jack walked about the room to head to the kitchen to start making himself a pot of coffee, humming a little tune while Gabriel continued to flail his little tendrils. Gabriel sprouted more of them from the black fabric and even shifted their colors to red to draw attention with the contrast against the coat! Jack finally glanced over at the bed as he stood by the counter with his hand on his hip as he poured water into the coffee machine and the red little tendrils wiggled excitedly as he finally looked over at Gabriel. They all collectively flopped over onto the coat as Jack casually looked back at his fucking coffee and acted like he didn't see the red little flags Gabe was waving. 

 

You fucking dick! Don't just stand there and stare at your coffee when there’s a perfectly good person trying to get your attention! This is why you have no real fucking friends, Jack Morrison!! You know what? Fuck it! I’m coming to YOU, insufferable prick!

 

Gabriel pulled the tendril back into the fabric and popped several of them on the underside of the coat to try to carry himself across the spans of the bed like a millipede with his many tiny tendrils.

 

A knock on the door drew Jack over to it, unlocked it and opened it enough to poke his head out to see a bright-eyed Jesse McCree with his partner, Dragon, shaped as a rather nice looking stetson on his head. Jack smiled as he opened the door since everyone saw everyone naked all the time anyways. 

 

“Looking good, Jesse. Dragon feeling better?” He asked politely.

 

“Howdy, Jack! Yeah! Sleepy head just woke up about ten minutes ago and I reckoned we should head over and see how team 76 was doin’!”

 

Jack let Jesse walk into the room and he closed the door behind him as the cowboy pulled out a chair at the table to plop down in it. He was still in his PJs but Jack didn't mind as he headed over to his dresser to change into a pair of boxers, shorts and a t-shirt just to be polite. He must have forgotten about Gabriel because suddenly there was a soft ‘flop’ onto the carpet next to Jack’s feet and one little tendril coming into contact with it was all Gabe needed. Several tendrils shot out from the fabric off the jacket on the floor to wrap around Jack’s ankles and pull his legs out from under him to send him face first into the floor.

 

You fucking dick!!

 

“Gabe, what the shit?!” Jack spat as his nose started to bleed from the sudden impact and he quickly brought his hand up to pinch his nose closed. “Youh kuhd huv kld mh!”

 

Ha ha ha! You sound so fucking stupid!! Serves you right for ignoring me, Juhk!!

 

“Ya okay over there, Jack?” Jesse asked with concern as he looked at him under the table, keeping Dragon’s hat form from falling off his head with a hand to the top of it.

 

“Faine.” Jack honked over as he tried to kick the tendrils wrapped around his ankles away while Gabe was in stitches from Jack’s misery. “Leggo, Gahb!”

 

Oh lighten up, Prom King, it's just a bloody nose. Here! I’ll even make it go away for you! Free of charge cause I’m sooo nice!

 

The jacket was converted into inky tendrils that shot their way up Jack’s body and reformed back into place on his chest, drawing a groan out his wearer. A light brush with a tendril against the nose healed up the wound lickety split as he place a barrier on the flesh that increased the rate of his wound closure. He retracted the tendril back into the black fabric of the coat as he snapped the barrier off as well, leaving Jack with a healed nose and a clean face.

 

See? Even when you piss me off I’ll still carry you!

 

“Oh that’s rich. Coming from the jacket who can barely move himself.” Jack grumbled under his breath as the tendrils around his ankles retreated back into the fabric of Gabriel’s idle jacket form and stood up, brushing himself off. He adjusted the jacket and zipped it up as he walked back over to a snickering McCree at the table and took a seat in the opposing chair.

 

“Looks like ya two are gettin’ along just fine.” 

 

Jack sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. “Back to our usual masochism tango.”

 

Kinky.

 

“Shush, Gabe.” Jack spoke without the usual bite to his words. Jesse smiled lopsidedly as he idly brushed the brim of Dragon’s idle hat form on his head.

 

“So, I was talkin’ to the others yesterday when I went out to get a midnight snack; There was a whole table filled with folks talkin’ quietly while holdin’ their restin’ partners.” Jesse started. “I sat down with them for a bit to join the support group and I was a bit surprised to see one of the instructors passin’ by the mess without battin’ an eye that they were out past curfew.”

 

Jack nodded his head as he flipped the collar of the jacket to neaten it while Jesse spoke. Gabriel intentionally liked to give Jack little tasks to keep his hands moving and lower his anxiety with the ritual on the rare occasion if he ever slapped himself on Jack instead of the other way around. It was the little things that helped Jack smoothly transitioned into his day, even if that meant not being a perfectly behaving sentient jacket. “Yeah. They overlook the curfew if you stick around in the unofficial support group spots the day the combat robes are returned to us. It helps lower the dropout rate from the mental stress of dealing with the whole thing. It was pretty bad when they first started the program, I heard.” He frowned as he tucked his hand into Gabriel's pockets. “Anytime a wearer drops out, the combat robe is wiped to a blank slate status so it has a chance to be recycled for a new wearer who enters the program. But back in the beginning, the robes were treated as tools and there was no protocol set to recondition them that heavily so they were destroyed after a dropout happened.”

 

"Gabriel and other older combat robes were saved after morale reached an all-time low and dropout numbers reached an all-time high in the program. The military guys in charge forced the scientists to come up with a new way to save money by not destroying the robes when one user left and low-key adopted the ideology of the robes being our ‘partners’ to raise morale. Hence why there’s some staff and wearers who subscribe to the ‘partners’ ideology and some that believe that combat robes are ‘tools’ like other military equipment. Neither of them are right or wrong the military just wants you to confirm to an ideology that makes you stay in the program.” Jack concluded.

 

The coffee machine timer went off and Jack pushed his chair back as he rose from his seat. “Want some coffee?” He offered kindly.

 

“Yeah. Sounds good.” Jesse replied with a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit. I'm caught up on my backlog for this fic. Need to put the AUs aside and get cranking on the next chapter! 
> 
> Thanks for all the sweet support you guys have been giving me for this fic!


	6. Trying to understand

Gabriel was annoyed but not surprised at the least when Mark made his bedside reappearance but at least Jack took him off the hanger when he bid the stallion farewell after they were done and pulled him onto his naked torso. Jack went to clean himself up in the bathroom, clearly not all that satisfied with the stallion’s performance for once, oddly enough and hoped in the shower with Gabriel still on him.

 

Don't make the water so hot, Jack.

 

Jack frowned at that and turned the temperature knob a bit.

 

Jack. You know what I mean.

 

His wearer sighed as he turned it down to a reasonable temperature and stepped under the warm water with Gabriel’s idle jacket form still on him. Gabriel was waterproof and it certainly wasn't his first time dealing with water but Jack never took him into the shower. It was kind of nice to feel the warm beads of water run down the hydrophobic-lining of the fabric Gabriel applied before Jack got in, even if it was kind of weird for a human to bathe with clothes on. Jack sighed in relief as he let his arms go limp at his sides and leaned his head back to let the warm water run down his face and hair.

 

Soooo. Any particular reason you climbed into the shower with your expensive military-issued combat robe, Jack?

 

Jack shrugged his shoulders as he kept his eyes closed under the shower head. “Impulse? Felt like taking my partner into the shower with me for once?” He smiled.

 

Gabriel liked that answer. He liked it when Jack impulsively brought him into the picture since it made him feel more special to him. 

 

What do humans do in the shower? I get that you come out clean but what do you do to achieve that?

 

“Oh? Okay. I can walk you through the exciting journey of how humans get clean.” Jack chuckled, playful sarcasm laced in his words that made Gabriel more interested than he originally thought he would be. “The approach for getting dirty humans clean is to use a head down approach rather than doing everything at once. Different parts of the body have different needs to get clean like my hair for example.” 

 

Gabriel watched curiously as Jack picked up a bottle from the floor and held it up. 

 

“This is called ‘shampoo and conditioner’, it’s a mixture that hydrates my hair and dissolves the oil that naturally builds up from the pores working throughout the day. It’s similar to sweating but we don't use soap to clean it unless we have no other options but to use it.” Jack explained as he picked up a small white block off the floor of the shower. “This is ‘soap’. It’s used to clean and rehydrate the skin of the body. It does not come in contact with the hair. That make sense?”

 

It’ll make more sense when I watch you use each of them. Wait, what about your pubes? That get the liquid cleaner for your head as well since it’s hair follicles?

 

Jack flushed at that and carefully leaned over to set the soap down on the floor of the shower before stepping away from the running water to uncap the top of his liquid hair cleaner. He squirted the liquid into his palm before capping the bottle and leaning back over to set it on the floor. “Soap is fine for anything other than the hair on my head. The pubic hair gets the soap since I don't want to grow it out.” He bashfully answered. “I might need to trim the hedges, now that I think about it.”

 

Why? You don't like when I grab them?

 

Jack was a flushing mess as he rubbed the liquid cleaner between his palm and started to scrub it into his lovely blond locks to work it to a foamy lather. Gabriel curiously extended a tendril up to assist Jack in his endeavour, not really having much luck in that regard but Jack seemed to hum in enjoyment from the touch. He didn't need Jack to answer that question anyways since he knew the answer was an overwhelming ‘yes’.

 

“Alright. I think I’m good, Gabe. I’m gonna get back under the water to rinse it out now.” He announced.

 

That’s fine. I figure I need to wash my ‘ten’, as you put it, off rather than absorb the chemicals if you don't want to absorb it either. 

 

Jack nodded his head and walked back under the shower head, warm water rinsing the top layer off while he worked his hands in speed up the process. Gabriel rinsed off the tendril before retracting it back into the fabric of the jacket while Jack continued to rinse until he was satisfied. Jack stepped back out from under the shower head to reach down and grab the bar of soap about to start rubbing it against his arm before realizing his issue.

 

I'm in the way, aren't I?

 

“Yeah… You think you can move to my back completely for a bit while I wash up?” 

 

Sure.

 

Gabriel thought Jack was going to take him off but the suggestion of a migration to his back sounded like a nice alternative. He reduced the jacket to ink and started to move his mass toward Jack’s back, starting with the sleeves first so his wearer could start scrubbing his arms as he worked. Gabriel had his entire mass running down the length of Jack’s back by the time he started lathering his other arm and enjoyed the steam of the warm water nearby warming his form while he waited.

 

This is relaxing.

 

A small, fond chuckle left Jack’s lips as he rubbed the bar of soap down the front of his chest. “I need to take you to a sauna or at least introduce you to a bath, Gabe. I imagine you’ll love those if you find a shower enjoyable.”

 

Put it on our bucket list then, Jack.

 

“Roger loud and clear, Gabe.” Jack smiled fondly as he worked the bar of soap down to his pelvis region and set the soap down to gather up some of the foam on his stomach in his palms. He then started cleaning his messy pubes and flaccid cock from his earlier mediocre sexual encounter a few minutes ago.

 

You can touch it without getting hard?

 

Jack huffed at that. “Yeah. I'm doing it to clean myself, Gabe. I can't go and absorb everything like a sponge like you can.”

 

I know you urinate as well with it but it just confuses me that it has so many functions, especially your anus. 

 

Jack brought a palm to his face and groaned. “Can we just leave it at that, Gabe?”

 

Urgh. Fine. I don't want to touch your gross ass anyways.

 

“Suuuure, Gabe. Sure.” Jack spoke sarcastically, stepping back into the water to rinse himself off in the front and run his fingers over his man parts to make sure that no soap residue was on it before turning around. Jack then leaned forward and exposed his ass to the water, letting out a muffled whimper from the contact as Mark’s cum rolling down of his ass was rinsed off his ass. He then walked out of the water to scrub the front and back of his legs before using the foam to clean his ass and balls. If Jack was anything less than sore right now, Gabe might have offered to help him clean those areas but decided to let Jack handle it instead. Maybe fix that shitty orgasm problem Jack was having earlier as a bonus too.

 

Jack stepped back into the water to rinse himself off thoroughly before he turned off the water and stepped out of the shower to grab a towel but Gabriel beat him to the punch by making a fluffy black towel out of himself. Gabriel then wrapped himself securely around Jack and even made him a towel hood to pull over his hair to help that part of him dry as well. Jack smiled and huddled Gabriel around him tightly for a moment, indulging in a moment of pure affection between the both of them as he pushed his cheeks into the fabric, before opening the bathroom door to step out. 

 

Should I be concerned that you didn't scrub your back, Jack?

 

“Nah. Don't need to most of the time. It’s hard to reach anyways.” Jack shrugged as he took a seat in his chair at the table, wincing for a moment from the pain.

 

You need a new bottle of lube, Jack.

 

“I fucking know that, Gabe!” He huffed before quickly getting up to get some painkillers from the counter along with a glass of water. “I’ll get some tomorrow.” Jack popped the pills into his mouth and gulped down the water. “You take too much when we fuck anyways.”

 

Hey! I store it for more than fuck sessions, Asshole! You know how useful lubricant is when I can secrete it in a pinch on the battlefield!

 

“You’re just doing it so I won't have so much sex with anyone else.” Jack spoke dismissively as he took another drink from his glass.

 

You shouldn't have to have sex with anyone else.

 

Jack paused and set the glass down on the counter. Gabriel had to be brave with this. It was what he wanted and he shouldn't be afraid to talk about it with Jack. 

 

“Something wrong with me having multiple partners, Gabe?”

 

I want us to be exclusive, Jack.

 

Jack frowned at that and he took his glass over to the sink to refill it. “That’s asking for a lot, Gabe.”

 

How is it asking for a lot, Jack? You don't love any of them.

 

Jack shut the sink off and set the glass down firmly on the counter. “I don't have sex for love, Gabriel, I have it to cope and to help others cope.”

 

Okay. Help me understand this better then. When we have sex is it so you can cope? What are you ‘coping’ from anyways?

 

“We’re coping from grief, mostly the pain of loss.” Jack answered vaguely.

 

Okay. But what is everyone collectively losing that makes you feel like you need to have sex?

 

Jack went quiet for a moment before looking down at his feet absentmindedly. “Losing progress in our relationships with you, our partners.” He spoke quietly. “High synchronization rates and the ability to hear you have a lot to do with wanting to connect to each other beyond our own roles as wearer and robe, Gabe. It’s a sign of love from both parties.”

 

Why can’t I help you, Jack?

 

“My own stupidity and naïve thoughts costed you your former self. I basically killed you by freaking out about my own feelings towards you back then.” Jack answered bitterly. “I won't be able to hold it together if you were wiped once more.”

 

You’re saying that I’m wasting my time trying to pursue you then?

 

“Who else is there for you to pursue, Gabe?” Jack spat bitterly. “Your only options are me because you can't ever have more than one intimate relationship in your life! The moment you lose interest in me is a death sentence. I’m all you're allowed to have and it’s not fucking right!” He slammed his fist onto the counter, rattling the glass from the impact.

 

I don't understand, Jack. Why is it so wrong for me to love you as I am now? Is it because I will never be human? Because it’s so easy for them to erase us even though I came back to you? Did you prefer me as I was before?

 

Jack gritted his teeth almost painfully at that. “You were almost exactly the same person as you are now, Gabe. It was like they never wiped you that first time but it took you so long to get back up to this point that I- I’m terrified. Okay? It feels like it will happen again if I’m not careful.”

 

It still didn't help Gabriel better understand Jack when he picked and chose the questions Gabe wanted answered but he wasn't going to push it today. They had a nice bonding moment in the shower and Gabriel didn't want to ruin that memory by fighting with Jack. Memories were more precious to him than ever now, after all.


	7. Even when you're old and grey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just really want to thank everyone for leaving so many kind and sweet comments to encourage me forward on this fic along with my other ones! I'm releasing the new chapter early as thanks!

Hope for an out of this crushing despair came at the call of the UN with Jack and Jesse now packing their bags for leave for one week until they would meet again in Zürich, Switzerland. 

 

Jack was taking him to his parents’ home in Indiana, wherever that was, and Gabriel was thrilled to finally have a chance to put his skills to the test in a civilian environment! Covert operations test and a chance to learn more about Jack! It was absolutely perfect and he didn't have to worry about being reconditioned either!

 

His partner wasn't exactly in the brightest of moods though. At first Gabe thought it had to do with him having to write out his responses or hold his phone up to his ear to pretend he wasn't talking to his jacket but he grew more quiet when they got into a taxi to take them to his farm. A wind farm apparently from the numerous wind turbines that rotated in the breeze.

 

Didn't we blow something similar to this up at one time?

 

“Yep.” Jack sighed as he threw his duffle bag over his shoulder after he paid the cab and waited to make sure the car was far off in the distance before speaking. A modest two story house laid further down the gravel driveway and Jack didn't seem to be very pleased. Maybe it was because it was warm today? He was always crappier when it got hot no matter how much Gabriel adjusted the lining of the jacket to make it lighter on him. Today would be no exception, it seemed.

 

Anything I should know before we go in, Jack? Other than the usual ‘act like a jacket’ stuff.

 

“Mhm. My mother hates us wearing coats at the table so I can't wear you at dinner. No sex, walls too thin, and I don't have a lock on my door. Shower sex is fine if we’re quick.”

 

Whaaaaat? How the hell did ‘sex freak’ Jack Morrison survive under this roof?

 

“Quietly.” 

 

You? ‘Quiet’?!

 

Jack’s cheeks flushed as he grumbled under his breath about ‘annoying, probing combat robes’ and Gabriel laughed. He brought his hand up to his shoulder to hug his jacket close to him, making Gabriel perk up considerably from the affection Jack gave him. 

 

His heart would always be Jack’s even if this was a rough period in their relationship they were trying to get over.

 

\--

 

If there was one phrase that he hated coming out of the sweet lady’s mouth it had to be ‘let me take your coat, Dear’. Jack’s mother was a sweetheart based on her interactions with Jack when his parents greeted him warmly at the door but he was tempted to slap her hand with a tendril when she reached for ‘Jack’s coat’. He would surrender him to the kindly lady and he would be hung up on an already overloaded hook in the hall for old, moldy coats that smelled terrible.

 

Jack would look back at him every time he was hung up and mouth an ’I’ll come back’ before he was dragged away by his mom. Gabriel was absolutely livid at the situation he was in, not at the people or even Jack since this was reality. 

 

He was clothes, not a person.

 

Gabriel got tossed onto that hook three times today but not from a lack of trying to convince his mother that he wanted to keep his ‘jacket’ with him. That’s how Gabriel ended up with his sleeves tied around Jack’s waist and Jack sitting down on him on the couch while the family watched TV.

 

Jack. At least lay me over your lap if they’re at least putting up with idea now. Tell your mom that your legs are cold if she complains cause I’m not enjoying your ass right now.

 

He rolled his eyes and untied the sleeves, sliding Gabriel out from under him to lay him over his lap, and red ‘76’ displaying proudly. Gabriel could see better with more of his surface area not covered by Jack’s ass and legs, he could see the short man that was Jack’s father looking over at his partner oddly but didn't say anything. His blue eyes looked down at Gabriel on Jack’s lap, studying the idle combat robe while Gabe did the same in return.

 

“Jack, when did you start wearing black?” He chuckled fondly and Gabriel felt a sense of relief for some reason.

 

“Oh. This is a jacket I borrowed from a friend back in the army.” Jack replied seamlessly, this whole conversation practiced to death almost everyday at the training facility.

 

“Mind if I look at it? Been awhile since I've seen such a nice-looking biking jacket.” He asked with a smile, instantly stroking Gabe’s ego in all the right places.

 

Let him see me, Jack! He must know quality if he can see that I’m ‘nice-looking’! 

 

Jack grumbled under his breath for some reason and got up to walk over to the recliner his father was sitting to hand Gabriel off to him. The silver-haired gentleman took Gabriel with much care from Jack, his smile as enchanting as his son’s, and held the jacket up by it’s shoulder to get a good look at him from the front. 

 

Gabriel thought he was rather handsome and wondered if Jack would age as gracefully as he did. He certainly hoped he would live long enough to see that.

 

The thought greatly saddened Gabriel, the idea of his death and not being there for Jack afterwards. Him being erased once drove him to keep Gabriel at arm’s length but…

 

Gabriel was held against the man’s chest, almost giving him a heart attack at the timing. Jack was visibly irritated for a while until his dad held him then he was looking as white as a sheet at the sight. 

 

“Uh. You okay, Dad?” 

 

“Mhm. Just felt like holding something close for a moment, is all.” He answered as he held Gabriel against his chest. “Kind of get those impulsive moments when you suddenly feel sad for no reason at all? It's nice to hold something nice and comfortable. I understand why you like keeping this jacket handy versus carrying your blanket around since less people will misunderstand you, Jack.”

 

Jack’s father then looked up at his son with an understanding warmth in his eyes. “It’s a very nice biking jacket, Jack.” He spoke as he got up and handed Gabriel back to Jack before sitting back down. “Must mean a lot to the person who owns it to lean it to you like that. You don't want to introduce them to us?”

 

Jack’s mother was beaming beautifully in excitement as Jack went absolutely red in the face at that analysis. Gabriel was smug with all the compliments tossed his way by the older Morrison blissfully unaware of the corner Jack was backed into.

 

“It’s n-not that I don't WANT to introduce you guys to him it’s just that- He’s deployed right now! Can't exactly bring home a guy that physically can’t, right?”

 

His parents chuckled at Jack’s sloppy handling of that but didn't press on the topic any further. Gabriel still got hung back up on the ‘hook of death’ when they sat down for dinner, much to Gabriel’s annoyance but he could at least hear them conversing happily from the dinning room nearby. It sucked have such a nice moment with the family and the next second get tossed onto the hook like he didn't matter. He occupied the time by digging around in the pockets of the coat he was laying over with his tendril, looking for anything fun to play with, like pennies.

 

Jack came back and Gabriel dropped the coin he was using to practice his dexterity with, watching in amusement as Jack looked down at the coin by his feet. The blonde quirked a brow and leaned over to pick up the quarter before taking Gabriel off the hook. Jack tucked Gabriel’s mass under one arm and bid his parents goodnight, heading upstairs to his room.

 

“Could have told me you wanted a mental enrichment device to play with, Gabe.” Jack chuckled softly as he closed the door behind him and flicked on the light. 

 

Eh. The coin did the trick. I managed to flip and catch it this time.

 

“Oh? Mind showing me?”

 

Jack casually tossed Gabriel onto the bed before slowly tossing him the quarter, watching as a little tendril caught it with ease. His partner clapped until another tendril came out dramatically from the jacket gesturing for the audience to ‘be silent’ before shooting back into the fabric to bring focus to the tendril with the coin. Gabriel balanced the coin on the tendril on its side as Jack sat down on the worn white carpet to watch his partner perform his trick. The tendril the shot out from under the coin, flipping it into the air maybe a good foot off the jacket before Gabriel snatched it out of the air with the one he balanced it on before it could land on the jacket. The tendril then performed a bow as Jack clapped softly for Gabriel so his parents wouldn't come upstairs and ask why he was randomly clapping. 

 

“Nice trick, Gabe.” Jack smiled as he got up from the ground and sat down on the bed, pulling Gabriel into his lap. His fingers affectionately traced the red of his fabric and Gabriel could feel himself purr from how nice the touch felt after being touched starved from the past few hours. “I’ll do better to get you something to entertain you when you’re on the hook like that.”

 

Your dad scared the shit out of me earlier, Jack. I think he and I synchronized to some degree that he actually felt what I felt in that moment.

 

“Right. Cause you think my father is attractive.” Jack huffed as he rolled his eyes.

 

I- What?! I was thinking that I wouldn't mind if you got grey hair if he’s an indication of how you’ll age, Jack! 

 

“You think I would look good grey?” He asked skeptically.

 

Oooh yes, Jack. Very much so.

 

Gabriel extended a tendril up from the jacket on Jack’s lap and gently cupped his cheek the best he could. 

 

I’d still be proud to let you wear me if you end up as handsome as I imagine, Jackie.

 

Jack chuckled and brought his hand up to cover the tendril. He leaned his cheek into it as his eyes closed peacefully, both of them enjoying the tender moment for what it was.

 

“Even old, arthritic, and grey, you still would want me to wear you?”

 

I can be the warmest blanket you’ll ever need wrapped around your wrinkly body, Jack Morrison.

 

“Goddamn it, Gabe.” Jack sniffled harshly as he reached down and pulled the jacket into his arms, holding Gabriel firmly against him. 

 

Gabriel didn't mean to make him cry and made the tendril against his cheek split in two and wiping the corners of his wearer’s eyes as he sobbed.

 

Jackie, I’m sorry. What did I do wrong?

 

Jack laid back on his bed and all but cradled himself around his jacket as it fawned over him, trying to find the source of his pain.

 

“You’re a fucking idiot, Gabe.” Jack mumbled to Gabriel as he buried his face into the front of the jacket. “Fucking idiot…”

 

\--

 

Jack and Gabriel went out to go for walk in the early morning hours, a cool chill giving his wearer the perfect excuse to take Gabriel with him without odd looks from his parents. 

 

Gabriel enjoyed looked at the huge turbines rotating their massive blades as Jack listened to music as he jogged. Normally Gabriel would be wary of massive machinery but he could help but be mesmerized by their practice use of harnessing energy from the wind that rolled over the flat plains. It was simple and elegant, something he could appreciate.

 

He wasn't exactly used to being in a non-combat environment, his attention by the perplexing way that nearby birds chirped in the trees along the trail and the odd, brown furry thing with a bushy tail. Jack was off in his own little world when he put his music on so he took mental notes on what things he couldn't name or did not understand their function. He wanted to extend a tendril and touch the land. 

 

Would grass feel like rubber with how bendable it was? Would the bark of the trees splinter if he touched it or would it stay in place? Why are some of the leaves yellow while the rest are green? Are they sick? Could Jack fly if he constructed a good pair of wings for him to use?

 

Oh it was so exciting to be outside and not have to fight! So many sights to see and analyse! If only Jack would get out of his runner’s high and actually listen to his thoughts…

 

“Sorry. You were saying something?” Jack took one headphone out of his ear as he reduced his jog to a brisk walk. 

 

Bout time you tuned in, Jack. Can we go look at the wind turbine up close?

 

“Sure, I guess.” Jack shrugged his shoulders as he turned off the path and started jogging through the tall grass to head to one of the closer air turbines. “What’s with the sudden interest in them?”

 

Well, this is your childhood I’m experiencing. I would like to know what one looks like up close rather than imagining it since we have the free time to do so.

 

“Well, it’s not like my dad let me mess with them, we always brought in professionals to fix them when they broke down.” Jack explained. “Also there’s going to be a few bird corpses lying about the base.”

 

The blades move so slow though. You think they would fly around them.

 

“Not during a fucking thunderstorm or an especially windy day. Sucks them right in and… Yeah.” 

 

Okay. Disgusting. You think I can grab one of the blades?

 

Jack came to an immediate halt and turned right back around to head back to the path.

 

W-wait!! That was just hypothetical!! Jack come on!!

 

They get back to the house an hour later and Gabriel is rather fatigued from willingly sampling the insect population that slammed into the material of his jacket. He definitely wouldn't tell Jack about that one and just relaxed on the bed as Jack took his shower. It was juvenile but it’s not like he could get sick or smell by absorbing a bug or two. Some were just a bigger pain in the ass to break down and store as energy for later use.

 

Jack’s mother came in a few minutes after Jack hopped into the shower, humming happily as she walked about the room and taking pride in her son being back, no doubt. He wanted to talk to the sweet woman, thank her for raising Jack to be so kind and an excellent partner that he couldn’t bear to part with. 

 

Gabriel almost took that all back as she set her sights on him laying out on the bed and walked over, scooping him up in her arms. 

 

Not the hook!! Anything but the hook, Lady!!

 

She hummed happily as she held Gabriel to her chest, nuzzling the side of her cheek against the fabric of his jacket. It was oddly calming. Did the Morrisons just have this aura that makes Gabriel want to let them wear him and keep them comfortable like their son? Definitely not make them WEAR him like his intended purpose but make a big blanket to keep the three of them warm on a cold winter’s night.

 

“John was right. You are nice to hold.” She whispered softly to Gabriel. “Jack’s lucky to have such a wonderful person in his life to lend him such a nice coat to help ease his anxiety.”

 

M-mom…! You’re so nice to me!

 

“Hmm? You want me to put you on, Dear?” She chuckled mischievously as she unzipped the coat and pulled it around her frame, enjoying the warmth Gabriel bathed her in. “Such high quality fabric! No wonder Jack always wants to wear you.” Mrs. Morrison cooed happily.

 

I can't take this family. Why can't anyone other than Jack hear me?! I want to talk to you both too! I got so many embarrassing stories to tell you both!

 

“MOM!!” 

 

Jack had a towel around his waist as he opened the door to his room and saw his mother wearing Gabriel, happily dancing about the room as she held him close to herself.

 

“Oh, Jackie! I just had to try the coat on for myself when your father said he liked it so much! You think the company that made it would mail it out to us out here?” She smiled pleasantly at her son, knowing full well he couldn't stay mad at her when she was that happy. 

 

“It was custom made, Mom. One of a kind, you know?” Jack sighed as he watched his mother take off Gabriel and neatly laid him back on the bed, running her hands over the front of the jacket to smooth it out.

 

Looks like some habits are learned from parents to child…

 

Gabriel didn't mind if all and wanted to wave a tendril to Mrs. Morrison as she left the room so Jack could get changed around but resisted the urge. Jack’s family was pleasant so far, maybe he was just nervous coming home after being gone for so long thinking that things would not change between them? 

 

Jack tossed off his towel and grabbed Gabriel, hugging tightly against his wet chest, and thoroughly confusing the combat robe. 

 

...Are you jealous, Jack?

 

“What are you telling my parents, Gabe?”

 

Nothing. They’re just feeling what I’m feeling, I guess. I have talked just to see if they could hear me and it doesn't seem like they are. 

 

Jack sighed in relief but kept Gabe close to him as he walked around the bed to get to his dresser. None of his old thing fit but that was not the reason why he took out his favorite shirts and such; Gabriel catalogued them into his muscle memory as he examined and touched the fabric with a tendril. He could easily reproduced the outfit to fit Jack’s enhanced body for casual use later when Jack wanted to feel the comforts of home; Kind of like when he turns into the fleece blanket when Jack has rough days.

 

What’s with all the superhero stuff you have, anyways?

 

“I like it, alright? It fun to enjoy a simple world where heroes can solve all the world’s woe with one punch or taking down a super villain.” 

 

Jack held up a yellow shirt with a bald guy on it and Gabriel looked at it curious.

 

This guy looks a lot different from the rest. 

 

“It’s a comedy take on the genre, I think you would like it, Gabe.” Jack chuckled as Gabriel touched the shirt with a tendril to log it.

 

Yeah? Can we watch it then?

 

Jack nodded his head. “Yeah. I plan on taking the holos with me to Zürich anyways since I won't have to worry about the military confiscating them anymore. We can watch all the shows together and anything else you come to like, Gabe.”

 

Anything I like?

 

“Yeah. I want you to have fun too and learn to experience things that you don't get to in SEP. There’s no one to stop us from having a good time so long as no one finds out about you.”

 

Knock on wood.

 

“Ditto.” Jack chuckled.

 

\--

 

Jack got changed back around and was eager to show Gabriel some of his childhood toys. There were so many things to touch and feel as Jack went through his toy chest, Gabriel laying on his lap while he handed his tendrils various objects of importance to him. 

 

The toy bear was his favorite to touch and hold. It was so soft and it’s ears were adorable to flick as he looked at it. It was dark brown with a green felt shirt on and apparently had a little tupperware box filled with a variety of colored shapes with velcro on the bottom so Gabriel could customize his shirt. Jack continued to pull out toy after toy for Gabe’s other tendrils to play with but he always kept a set of two playing around with the bear.

 

“That piece is suppose to be a bowtie, Gabe.” Jack corrected as he saw the four tendrils holding and arranging the felt pieces on the bear's shirt. He reached down and delicately plucked the vertical set of blue triangles triangles Gabriel put on the left side of the shirt and flipped it horizontal before moving it to the top center of the bear's shirt.

 

Wait. It’s not an hourglass for telling time? 

 

Jack blinked and turned his head to look at the piece on the bear again with the new perspective. 

 

“Okay. I see what you mean by that. You want it to be an hourglass or a bowtie, Gabe?” He asked curiously. “Maybe it’s a science award pin he won.”

 

Huh? A science award?

 

“The toy is suppose to provoke children’s imaginations, to help them create creative stories in their heads for fun and games. I was just trying to reason with my imagination on why he would have an hourglass accessory on his clothing.” Jack explained.

 

Oooh. That makes sense. I have a third opinion the piece though!

 

“And that is?”

 

Gabriel turned the bear around after taking the blue piece off with a free tendril and applied it horizontally to the mid-upper back of the bear's shirt.

 

It’s a pair of wings growing on his back so he can fly one day.

 

Jack smiled warmly at that for some reason and they continued to focus their attention on the bear as they played and rearranged pieces to create a fun narrative for the bear. It was very refreshing for Gabriel to manipulate toys rather than himself to please Jack, and he encouraged him to think outside of the box when he could. Gabriel liked the toy box very much and the wealth of enjoyment it brought him. He could feel the bond Jack had with the toys and could see the relief it brought to him when he was a young boy when he talked about them. 

 

He was probably adorable as a kid, a whole lot smaller and with a blonde tuft of hair on his head, as he played on the carpet where they were sitting with the bear. Gabriel wondered what it was like being a child and growing into something so much more. He was like the putty Jack frequently described, being able to mold and shape into anything in his imagination before returning to his natural state; a black blob. 

 

Gabriel dropped the bear, his tendrils trembling as the pain surged through him.

 

Reality was so painful.

 

His form broke, threads snapping, and melting into a pile of black ink in Jack’s lap as partner started to panic. Jack’s hands fought to pull Gabriel back together, molding him into the fucking black ink ball that he was. The ugliest fucking lie was himself and the lies he filled in his head when didn't have the body parts that would be applicable.

 

I’m not- I’m not- ! I can’t be- !

 

He couldn’t breathe. Tendrils swarmed around Jack’s hands and arms as he carried him to the safety of the bed, crawling under the covers. He couldn't breathe and everything hurt! Water rushing in with no room for air!

 

Jack was whispering to him, trying to calm him but it was all muddy to Gabriel in the moment. 

 

Why didn't anyone help him?!

 

Water! Water! The disgusting taste of filthy water filling his lungs!

 

He clung to Jack tightly, wrapping more tendrils around his body just to hold him close as Gabriel felt himself being drawn in by his voice. Such kind and reassuring words for him. Him. ‘Gabriel’. He had a name and a purpose. Jack Morrison’s safety was his purpose. Jack’s purpose was his purpose. His name was Gabriel and it was okay to be scared.

 

“You back with me yet, Gabe?”

 

I’m sorry. I didn't mean to ruin the moment.

 

Jack continued to cradle himself around Gabriel and the warmth he felt was soothing as he remember that it was okay. That he was okay.

 

“It’s been quite a while since the last time I saw you break down like that. First time since your reconditioning actually. It was a lot more common during our first year together. Just me and you under the covers holding each other until you felt safe.” He whispered softly.

 

Ah. That’s why Jack loved hiding under blankets when he felt nervous. Figures the habit would rub off on Gabriel and why he enjoyed turning into a blanket for Jack. The tendrils eased up their constriction on Jack’s hands and arms, rubbing the flesh gently to help ease his pain from squeezing so hard and help with the blood flow.

 

You okay, Jack? Do you need me to barrier any part of your hand or arms for pain? Did I dislocate anything?

 

“Yeah. Think you snapped my pinky on accident. Left hand.” Jack murmured softly as Gabriel moved several tendrils to the digit and formed a black veil over it, reconstructing the bone he snapped with his own molecular make up as adhesive for the bone pieces to attach together before withdrawing the rest of the barrier. 

 

Sorry.

 

“I know you didn’t mean to do it, Gabe. Pain is temporary and i know you’ll fix me up right after, like always.”

 

Tendrils sprouted upwards from the ink blob Jack curled around, holding both sides of Jack’s face before he placed two small pools on the corners of Jack’s lips.

 

Please?

 

“I could use a kiss right now anyways.” Jack chuckled in amusement, allowing the black ink to pool over his lips and seal them closed.

 

I love you, Jack Morrison. I feel like a person when I’m with you.

 

Jack cradled Gabriel’s ink blob closer to his chest. The warmth he could feel radiating of Jack was incredibly soothing to Gabriel even if he couldn’t tell what Jack was thinking or feeling. He loved him with all his heart, no matter how hesitant Jack might be about returning his feelings for him. Jack could be an old man and he would still love him unconditionally, no matter how much he hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just an FYI, we're about to finish part one of the fic. I'm not sure if, when we get there, I should make a new fic dedicated to part two or just continue uploading chapters to this one. If I made a new fic for part two I would definitely link them together as a series but I want to know what you guys think I should do.


	8. To Zurich

When Gabriel felt good enough to function, Jack laid Gabriel’s jacket form of his lap on the bed while he fired up the holotv and the entertainment unit. Jack handed Gabriel’s tendrils a controller while he kept one for himself. After spending thirty minutes explaining and showing Gabriel how he moved the character on the screen, Gabriel tried coordinating several tendrils to get the character to move before Jack helped Gabe make his own character.

 

It was a collection simulation game where little animal humans wandered around a village and used items they collected to build and customize their houses. Apparently, you could customize your character too, something Gabriel found to be much more enjoyable then the weird tasks the villagers handed out to you. He let Jack handle the tasks unless he needed ‘player 2’ to assist him in a mini game or something. 

 

Gabriel’s character was a dark brown male villager who enjoyed home decoration and being a fashion designer while Jack’s default villager was more of a ‘man of the earth’ kind of guy who loved helping out the villagers. The music was fun and charming as Gabriel wandered around the map to explore the world on his screen while Jack would occasionally come along and explain details to him like catching bugs and such. 

 

Don’t move so fast, Jack. I have the hand-eye-coordination of a fucking two-year-old!

 

Jack snickered mischievously and allowed Gabriel to catch a butterfly with one of his extra nets. The task was daunting for him to manipulate a character but Jack switched Gabriel’s screen to ‘traditional’ mode so everything was a bit flatter and locked the camera to one angle. MUCH easier for him the grasp as he maneuvered his character into place to nab the butterfly that had been evading him for twenty minutes.

 

YEAH! LOOK AT THIS WHITE, POWDERY, MOTHERFUCKER! It’s going right in my house, Jack!

 

Gabriel’s character proudly held the common white butterfly over it’s head as Jack’s character emoted a ‘smiley’ face.

 

“Let’s go in your house and I’ll show you how to display it.”

 

Gabriel’s character followed after Jack’s, still holding his motherfucking butterfly up like a trophy, into Gabriel’s small house.

 

Oh. What’s this asshole doing in my house?

 

“He’s ‘mister tutoriel’ he’ll explain how to display things in your house. Let me know if you can’t understand what he’s saying.”

 

Jack’s character was wandering around Gabriel’s tiny, one-floor house, and dropping ‘petals’, an in-game placeholder for items, onto his floor in certain spots while Gabriel read the text. He was a slow reader, hence why Jack was doing some design work that would need Gabriel’s approval after he finished with the tutorial on home decoration. Gabriel watched the tutorial character leave after the explanation was done and maneuvered his character over to one of the petals on the floor.

 

‘Would you like to approve of ‘basic fireplace 1’?’ The prompt screen asked and Gabriel tapped the ‘accept’ button to watch the petal shift into an animated fireplace against the wall of his house after he dropped his butterfly onto the floor.

 

That butterfly isn’t going to make me catch it again, right?

 

“Nope. Anything you drop on your floor will stay there. The game won’t remember anything you ‘drop’ outside of your house though.” Jack explained, walking his character over to the butterfly to pick it up and carrying it over to the entrance of the house. “See? I can’t even take anything out of your house unless you ‘trade’ it to me or use it to ‘decorate’ my home when we’re in it.”

 

I see, I see! Can we set the butterfly on the wall somewhere?

 

“Yeah! I can’t do it since it’s not my property. Here.” Jack’s character set down the butterfly down before walking over to gabriel’s character to initiate a ‘trade’. He gave Gabriel a few ‘insect display’ pieces and instructed him to place the butterfly into his inventory and ‘place’ it into on the display frames. “Okay. Now you hit this button and it will open up the customization menu for the house.” Gabriel followed Jack’s instructions and soon the butterfly was on the wall next to the fireplace in a display case. “Nice job! Didn’t even have to explain how to put it on your wall or anything.”

 

Gabriel enjoyed the praise and went through to approve of the rest of the items Jack placed in his house before they went back outside. An ‘alert’ ping came up on their screens, making Jack raise a brow as a train conductor penguin came up on their screens to tell them that a guest wanted to visit their village.

 

“Weird.”

 

What is?

 

“This game is ten years old and the community for it moved on to more recent versions of the game. Must be another oldie looking for friends that still play this game since it was so highly praised back in the day.” Jack smiled nostalgically and tapped on the ‘approval’ button to let the stranger into their village. “Let’s go say ‘hi’ to them, Gabe.”

 

Sure.

 

Jack’s character led Gabriel’s through the town to the area where the train station was and another ‘villager’ character waved at them. Their name was ‘Leviathan’. Jack explained how ‘communication’ worked in the game and that they could use certain phrases to talk to people as he selected ‘hello’ and ‘nice to meet you’ from the choice list. 

 

Leviathan: ‘Pleased to meet you’ ‘:)’

 

So what can we do with three people?

 

“Well. We can play some mini games together and have an AI handle the fourth player on our team.” Jack hummed as he tried to recall all the mini games in his head. “Assuming that our new friend isn’t an AI themselves.”

 

Huh? An AI?

 

“Yeah. You get special rewards for visiting other people’s towns and playing mini games with them so some players made special bots to do it for them. We can just kick our friend if he turns out to be a bot.”

 

Why is it any different than playing with the game’s AI being our fourth player?

 

Jack paused for a moment and scratched his chin at that. “That’s kind of a good point. You have to win in order to accumulate points in the mini-games…”

 

Leviathan: ‘Are you having a good day?’

 

Let me try answering them this time, Jack.

 

“Be my guest, Gabe.” He chuckled fondly.

 

Reaper: ‘Nice day!’ ‘Want to catch bugs?’

 

Leviathan’s character came back over to them, making Jack skeptically hum as they waited for the person’s response.

 

Leviathan: ‘Sure!’ ‘Beatles’ ‘?’

 

“Okay. Maybe our friend isn’t a bot after all. Usually bots are really obvious in the almost instantaneous way they respond and bug catching isn’t a mini game in this particular title.” Jack smiled. “Do you want to catch bugs with him, Gabe?”

 

Of course! I have plenty of frames to display bugs in my house, as you know!

 

Jackie: ‘Yes’ ‘Beginner’

 

Leviathan: ‘Fine’ ‘let’s have fun’ ‘!’ ‘:)’

 

‘Player: ‘Leviathan’ has joined your party!’ The game happily announced.

 

“Let’s lead our new friend to the catching fields, Gabe.”

 

Roger that, Jack!

 

\--

 

Jack spent most of the time relearning how to stalk beatles with Leviathan while Gabriel’s character was practicing catching the much-easier butterflies nearby in the flower patches. He was honestly surprised that anyone would be playing ‘Village Adventure’ much less be looking for people to play with online. It was fun to teach Gabriel new things but also give him a safe environment to interact with others without them knowing what he truly was. Kind of amusing to see a combat robe engaging in play like a normal human would, only with a lot of tentacles and having to sit up someplace high so his ‘eyes’ would enable him to ‘see’ properly. 

 

He remembered lying down on the carpet with a pillow propping up his arms as he played video games as a child but knew that Gabriel could play comfortable from any angle since he had no bone structure to tire out. It made him so happy being able to share his childhood with Gabriel regardless of their relationship hiccups before he got reassigned to the UN’s top secret Strike Force team. He wouldn’t leave McCree behind since both him and Gabriel always had trouble bonding with someone they both liked along with Jesse’s ability to sympathize with him. 

 

Jack decided to add the game console to the list of the things they would bring to their base of operations in Switzerland and secretly hoped that their would be more players online like Leviathan that were looking to just have fun.

 

\--

 

Gabriel was still not allowed to stay at the dinner table and confined to the hook during meal times. Jack gave him this weird block toy where he had to arrange the blocks on the puzzle to make all the colors match on each side. He played around with it in the pocket Jack left it in, sliding the sides around to make fun patterns instead of outright solving it, and got an amused laugh out of Jack when he came back to retrieve him after he was done eating. He wanted to go out for a walk on the trail again since their days out in the calm fields of Indiana were starting to draw to a close.

 

Learning about Jack’s childhood and his family made Gabriel all the more reassured that he was indeed in good hands. Jack helped him learn so many fun things that he didn’t even know existed before he got there. He got to experience an airplane ride, a taxi ride, a trail hike, and so many other wonderful things that he would never see in a combat situation. This is what ‘peace’ is, right? A place of warm and comfort where you don’t have to worry about your loved ones being put in harm’s way!

 

Jack put all of his things together, packing up his entertainment system into its old, original box, and wrapped it up in bubble wrap to keep it safe as he put it into a larger cardboard box that had the customizable teddy bear in it with its accessories along with his wrapped up holo drive containing a digital copy of all of his favorite shows. They were going to drop it off at a mailing terminal to send it ahead of them to their new home in Switzerland. After all of that was done, Jack snuck Gabriel into the bathroom when his parents were out for a few hours along with a bottle of lube he stashed away in his duffle bag. 

 

Have something in particular in mind with that bottle of lube, Stud?

 

Jack’s face flushed up adorably in the mirror as he locked the door behind him and started stripping off his clothes onto the floor. “Loud sex maybe?” He muttered under his breath and Gabriel was absolutely in stitches. 

 

Four days without sex only ever happened on missions but even then he would at least masturbate once or twice. Once a sex freak, always a sex freak.

 

Jack turned on the shower in the cramp bathroom before slipping Gabriel on and zipping him up. He poured a rather generous amount of lubricant on the sleeve for Gabriel to absorb before reaching his hand into the shower to test the temperature.

 

Jack. No more scalding hot showers if you want me to get in with you.

 

He grumbled in annoyance and complied, lowering the heat of the shower before stepping in, closing the plastic curtain behind him. Tendrils slowly came out of the jacket, gently trailing down Jack’s waist and outer thighs to tease him.

 

I love you, Jack Morrison.

 

“G-Gabe.” Jack swallowed hard, his cock erect and pressing proudly to his belly for Gabriel.

 

Jack was ever the sensitive cockslut, eager for for praise and affection, something Gabriel was more than willing to give him unconditionally in ample doses. It hurt to be always kept at arm's length outside of sex, no matter how closely Jack wore him to his own skin but his love would never falter for him.

 

He had no one but Jack Morrison. It was apparently a thing that bugged Jack to no end but what else could be done? He wasn't a person. He couldn't socialize with anyone else if he wanted, especially not civilians. Just being held by Jack’s parents and hearing their warm compliments made him happy. He wished so badly that he could talk to them, hope that they would accept him and his love for their son. 

 

Maybe Jack wouldn't be so hesitant then.

 

\--

 

I want a bite of that, Jack.

 

They were at the Indiana airport in the food court after they got past security. Jack was eating a rather delicious-looking sandwich that was called a ‘sub’ for some reason. It looked nothing like a submarine though.

 

Jack groaned as he sat down at a table with his suitcase tucked under, near his legs for security. Gabriel knew he was badgering the guy for a piece of his sandwich but his curiosity was heightened by all the buzz around the sandwich shop in the court. He took his phone out of his pocket and pressed it up between his shoulder and ear to pretend to make a call to cover up talking to himself in public.

 

“No. I'm not going to let you eat my sandwich, Gabe. Stop asking.”

 

What? Just break off a bit of the brown stuff and put it in your pocket, Jack!

 

Jack rolled his eyes and sighed heavily. “That’s even weirder, Gabe.” He took a bit of the amazing looking food and Gabriel found himself jealous. “Don't make me fold you up and put you in my suitcase, Gabe.”

 

Gabriel imagined this conversation would be strange if the food court wasn't so noisy and anyone had been sitting closer to him to hear Jack grumble into his phone. But who was he to judge what was and wasn't strange to humans anyways?

 

Jack broke off a piece, barely bigger than the quarter Gabriel was playing around with in one of his pockets, and shoved it into his pocket. Gabriel instantly grabbed the piece with a tendril and pulled it into the lining of the coat, cackling in excitement. It had no flavor but was at least a bit crunchy as he broke it down and stored it away into energy like everything else.

 

Thank you, Jack.

 

He sighed heavily, tucking his phone back into his pants before continuing to eat his sandwich while Gabriel kept a vigilant eye out, like always. Regardless of how grumpy Jack was now, at least his parents sent him off a lot happier than he did when he left for the army years ago. Jack wrote it out for Gabriel in his notebook as they traveled to the airport in a taxi, letting him into yet another piece of Jack’s life that he never knew nor asked about. 

 

He was definitely a lot happier than he let on.

 

\--

 

Zürich, Switzerland

 

Jack and Jesse walked together, Gabriel and Hanzo in their idle clothing forms on their wearers after they dropped off their stuff in their room, an apartment set up with two separate bedrooms for their own privacy. Both men were nervous, especially Jack since he was to be in charge of this special strike force to take down the Omnic God Programs that were wreaking havoc around the world. Jack’s hands were quivering in his pockets and Gabriel wrapped his tendrils around them gently, stroking the backs of Jack’s hands to try to sooth him. Jack and Jesse were only allowed to tell the UN and their team things on a ‘need to know’ basis, likely keeping Hanzo and Gabriel’s personalities a secret. 

 

Jack and Jesse were led into a conference room where several other people were waiting for them along with the UN’s secretary-general, their political ally in the fight. They took a seat next to a lovely black-haired woman with a tattoo under her eye and watched as the secretary-general took her place at the raised stage in front of the table.

 

She was a gracefully aged woman with radiant dark skin and eye sharp enough to kill in contrast to her lovely smile she wore. The woman the world regarded as ‘Eden’, Gabrielle Adawe. A legend in the political world who hand picked all the members of the Strike team in the room and their ally in the UN. Her brown eyes regarded everyone for a moment before she cleared her throat to speak.

 

“Welcome to Zurich, My Friends. Today is the day we’ve all been waiting for, some longer than others, but we all join here to launch humanities’ counter attack against the God Programs. You are all experts in your fields, fought many hard battles, and even lost faith in yourselves before signing on to the team. There will be many more planning to join under this unit of the UN but you are the core members that will hold the banner for humans and omnics of the free world.

 

Allow me the honor to introduce each of you to your new comrades in arms. First, will be Torbjorn Lindholm.”

 

A short man with a very thick, blonde, beard and a strange contraption for a right prosthetic arm came down from his chair before heading to the stage to stand beside Eden.

 

“The name’s Torbjorn and I hail from Gothenburg, Sweden. I’m a weapons engineer and enjoy building new machines in my spare time. It is an honor to meet you all.” He spoke warmly with a thick swedish accent. Jack and Gabriel thought the man would be a grumpy asshole from his resting bitch face but his simple introduction made him seem more friendly than they first thought he would be. They all clapped their hands and the short man smiled and nodded his head before walking off stage to return to his seat.

 

“The next person will be Liao.” Eden spoke crisply and a young-looking person in a wheelchair raised their hand at the table to get everyone’s attention focused on them.

 

“My name is Liao, I will be your intelligence officer. By that, I mean I can break into almost all omnic related databases and will be producing your communication and espionage devices for these upcoming missions. I will not be on the field with you for obvious reasons but you can rest assured that you’ll always have a friend trying to mess with the omnics when you’re shooting at them.”

 

I like this Liao.

 

Jack nodded in agreement to Gabriel’s statement but Gabe could feel how anxious he was since He would be going before McCree and Jesse would likely shape the information he presented about himself after Jack’s. Gabriel wondered what exactly Jack would say since he hadn’t exactly told him or even practiced an introduction speech on the flight. He wondered if Jack would be okay as everyone clapped politely for Liao.

 

“Next will be Reinhardt Wilhelm.”

 

A giant beast of a blonde man stood up, all teeth in his grin but absolutely no mistaking the blunt happiness as he went around the table to step up onto the stage.

 

“My name is Reinhardt Wilhelm!” He boomed proudly. “I am from Stuttgart, Germany, and a proud member of the Crusaders! My hammer is my sword and my shield shall protect you all from whatever the God Programs throw our way! They will have to get to me first!”

 

I don’t have ears but I could literally FEEL the loudness of his voice!

 

Jack smirked and clapped his hands as Reinhardt came down from the stage and took his seat again beside Liao. So far, Gabriel was impressed by the variety of people chosen, feeling a lot more at ease with the smiles on the older men’s face as good signs for Jack’s allies. Jack was going to need support from his team and Jesse was more leaning on Jack than the other way around since he was likely the youngest member of the team. 

 

“Next will be Ana Amari.”

 

The long, raven-haired woman beside Jack stood up and walked around the table to stand up on the stage beside Eden.

 

“My name is Ana Amari. I will be the eyes from above as your sniper. I am also a certified field medic so if you run out of biotic fields then I will be able to patch up your wounds, assuming we do not all perish before then.” She smiled pleasantly, drawing a small chuckle out of the audience. “My daughter, Fareeha, is six years old now and my free time outside of training and meetings will be dedicated to furthering her education here at Zurich. Thank you for your understanding.”

 

“Let me know if she needs help on mathematics, Amari. I’ll be sure to help you both out in anyways I can.” Torbjorn offered with the friendliest of smiles and Ana nodded her head.

 

“I would be glad to have any help but do not go out of your way to do so, Mr. Lindholm.” Ana gracefully responded.

 

“Nonsense! It takes a village to raise a child, Yes?” Reinhardt laughed as the other smiled in their own little ways in agreement.

 

Gabriel was giddy at the overwhelming amount of support flowing about the room and the good sentiments that were being discussed as Ana left the stage to thunderous applause. Jack looked over at Jesse as Amari sat back down next to him and they both nodded their heads in silent agreement to something. After waiting for the room to quiet down, Jack raised his hand before Eden could speak.

 

“Yes, Mr. Morrison?” She asked curiously.

 

“Could we both come up for our introduction, Eden?” Jack asked respectfully as he gestured over to Jesse.

 

The woman nodded her head with a smile. “Sure. I see no harm. Next will be Jack Morrison and Jesse McCree.”

 

Any lingering conversations stilled as all eyes watched Jesse and Jack get up from their seats. Gabriel released his tendrils’ supportive hold on Jack’s so he could take them out of his pocket as both of the wearers approached the stage. Jesse took Hanzo’s hat form off his head to be polite as they stepped onto the stage together and Gabriel couldn’t help that the audience seemed more critical of them for some reason. Jack mumbled ‘I’ll lead’ to Jesse and the cowboy nodded his head as he held his hat to his chest with one hand.

 

“My name is Jack Morrison. Before I tell you who I am, I would honestly like to know what you’ve heard about us, if anything at all. It would be easier to explain certain things if I have an idea of where you all stand.” Jack started, a bit shaky with his words but Gabriel produced a tendril in the lining of the back of the jacket to rub a soothing circle against the fabric of Jack’s shirt he wore under Gabriel.

 

Ana was the first one to speak from the audience.  
“I’ve seen video of your unit’s feats around the world, Mr. Morrison. I believe the US Military created shape-shifting uniforms that can enhance the human body and push beyond a mortal’s normal limits in terms of speed and strength.” Ana’s voice tapered off, uncertain if she wanted to proceed with her thoughts before Lindholm spoke up.

 

“Your outfits, as remarkable as they are, don’t sit well with me at all, even without the whole embarrassing aspect of looking like hooker wear. I’ve seen bastions chew through armored tanks faster than the rate your outfits can deflect the bullets. It’s not the outfits themselves that do this but the barriers they can create that have me completely stumped from an engineering point of view.”

 

“I agree. Such barriers would be massive to recreate and yet your clothes can perform such miracles when we would need a heavy land unit to carry something of that efficiency? What is the secret?” Reinhardt asked genuinely as both he and Torbjorn leaned forward in curiosity.

 

In one way, Gabriel was glad that they weren’t mocking Jack and Jesse for the skimpiness of the active combat robe forms but he wasn’t so sure about this whole talk about the barriers. Jack, luckily, was quick on his feet with this line of questioning.

 

“From what I guess, and I have absolutely no rank to access documentation if it’s true or not, the barriers can change and refresh quickly because it’s all organic. There’s not a piece of tech in the outfits whatsoever because we’re fighting some that turns our technology against us. I’m only giving you my opinion of what could be going on under the hood since I wear it but I will say that bastions can chew through the barriers faster than a tank. I’ve seen it happen enough times with my own eyes…” Jack responded solemnly. “What really matters is that the God Programs cannot turn the Combat Robes against us and it’s why Jesse McCree and I were sent here to help out.”

 

Reinhardt nodded sympathetically with Jack on the bastion park of the story but Torbjorn was laying back in his seat and visibly trying to figure this all out from what little Jack knew.

 

“As for any of you that are worried about us walking around in those outfits for the sake of decency, what you see now is out partners in their idle forms out of combat.” Jack patted the front of his jacket while Jesse pointed to his hat. “My combat robe’s name is ‘Gabriel’.”

 

“My name’s Jesse McCree and this hat here is my combat robe, ‘Hanzo’.” Jesse smoothly chimed in with a pleasant smile.

 

“What’s stopping a human or an omnic from taking these robes from you and wearing it themselves?” Liao spoke up, echoing the question on everyone else’s face about such a wearable weapon.

 

“Unlike a rifle or even a piece of clothing, combat robes won’t activate if they are not being worn by their wearer.”  
“And if someone spoofs your voice and DNA?” Liao added.

 

“Loyalty to their wearer is their highest priority. No one gets deployed to the battlefield below a certain synchronization rate that would call that into question.” Jack answered back firmly.

 

“Hold on a moment.” Torbjorn interrupted Liao before they were going to speak and mouthed a ‘sorry’ to them before looking back at Jack. “‘Loyalty’? ‘DNA and voice spoofing does not affect them’? That sounds a LOT like a built-in AI or at least a high-functioning mental capacity you’re imply those clothes have.”

 

“You’re overthinking, Mr. Lindholm.” Jack smoothly spoke as Gabriel was just about have a panic attack from being outed as being a sentient being with free-will. “They’re similar to apes in that they can have a personality, things that they like and do not like, but are ultimately loyal to their wearer at the end of the day.”

 

“So, you can persuade them to like someone else through reward and punishment structure. I fail to see how this keeps them loyal when they can easily change their preferences for wearers.” Liao countered calmly.

 

“Alright then.” Jack shrugged his shoulders dismissively. “Unlike a cat or a dog, how do you appeal to a being that cannot talk, respond to positive feedback, or even feel pain? How do you know if your brainwashing is even working? It has no mind and no reason to bond to someone else. Your concerns, however valid, do not apply to a combat robe.”

 

“What about you should someone steal the robe then?” Amari spoke up. “You are from the US Military, yes, but will you still be even half as useful without it?”

 

Jack stilled oddly at that, making Gabriel concerned that he wouldn’t be able to handle much more out-of-the-box questioning until Jesse cleared his throat.

 

“Pretty sure the fact that the robes simply enhancing us is enough to vouch for our own capabilities without one. You can’t even get into the program to try one on unless you’re cream of the crop anyways. Jack and I could just go to the training range and show you what our numbers are, if you’re really that curious.”

 

Thank god for Jesse McCree and his quick tongue. It should have been a fucking easy question to answer, now that he thought about it but Jack seemed unsure of himself now. Gabriel patted him gently on the back with the tendril inside of the fabric, drawing a small smile from Jack. He wasn’t concerned with what lies he had to spit out to convince them that the combat robes were loyal and reliable. The fact that he loved Jack Morrison with all of his heart and the care for his own well being, even when he hasn’t returned his feelings, would alone never make him abandon Jack for someone else.

 

“Any other questions?” Jack asked, more confident and actually wearing a genuine smile as Jesse did the same.

 

No one stirred in the audience but he could still make out the skeptical looks for the people that would be Jack and Jesse’s new family. Hopefully them working alongside together would help ease the fear they all had of the combat robes. It was all that Gabriel wanted to see Jack grow close with the people that had such nice smiles.

 

Jack and Jesse bowed as they walked off stage to the polite sound of a clapping audience before taking their seats back at the table. This was going to be rough to adjust to yet another environment where Jack couldn’t speak to him freely but maybe they could one day get to the point where they could bullshit this whole thing like back in SEP. He would be hopeful and positive about the whole thing because that was what Jack needed in a time like this.

\--

 

Jack was a mess when the meetings were all over and he headed back to the dorms to get some much needed quiet time to ease his nerves.

 

And by ‘quiet time’ he meant ‘Gabriel whipping his naked body and holding it hostage in a pleasure cage’. 

 

Now that Gabriel thought about it, Jack didn’t have any stallions here to mess with here at Zurich and he wasn’t exactly interested in Jesse for a fuck partner since they supported each other by talking about their emotions rather than using each other as a physical outlet. Of course that could easily change when Jack got comfortable here and made new friends but that wouldn’t exactly be following the ‘we fuck for emotional support’ thing Gabriel let slide since they partnered up the second time around. Who knows how Jack coped during their first year.

 

So loud already, Jack, and all I’ve done is lock your knees apart and maybe given you a smack or two on the ass.

 

Gabriel purred playfully as he melted into black ink and focused the pool around Jack’s torso while other black veins branched out from it to hold his body. Jack was laying down on the cot, thighs down against the sheets and spread, while black tendril pulled the legs back so his heels were almost touching the backs of his thighs, a small pool supporting the ankles and knees to keep them comfortable while also locking them into that position. The tendrils that ran along his arms pulled them forward by the wrists, wrapping them around the bars of the headboard while another tendril dragged a pillow to pull it under Jack’s chin for comfort. The last set merely acted as a bar between Jack’s knees, forcing them apart while the pool of black around Jack’s waist continued to produce tendrils to smack his ass.

 

Jack had absolutely no purchase in this position with his arms extended out fully, and his feet up in the air with the bar holding him firmly in place. His cock was throbbing hard against the cot, likely leaking from how much of a kinky bastard he was, and all Gabriel did was simply create a tiny black cap over Jack’s cock head to absorb anything that came out of it. Poor guy couldn’t move his hips or anything to get the friction his cock begged for. All the more fun for Gabriel to deliver slowly and remind Jack who knows his body better than some dumb stallion he could get here.

 

Such a hot and heavy body you have, Jack Morrison. Imagine if I just slip a ‘ten’ down the front of your pants during one of the meetings, hm? Wouldn’t eve have to worry about making a mess because I’m so nice.

 

“Gabe.” Jack whimpered softly, his tongue shamelessly lapping at the dark pools on the corners of his lips to draw out a tendril from them.

 

What? You want a kiss or a big fat cock down your throat, Big Guy? I can give you both.

 

Gabriel snickered as the pools stretched over Jack’s lips, sealing them shut with a ‘kiss’, drawing a muffled whimper from Jack’s throat as he trembled. He slapped Jack’s left ass cheek firmly with a tendril before using tiny tendrils to pry Jack’s mouth open and slip in a nice, thick tendril for Jack to occupy himself on. His hot tongue was quick to roll and explore the appendage, making Gabriel wish he had nerves on it or something so he could feel how good it must be instead of just loving Jack’s enthusiasm. He wasn’t sure how far dicks went into throats though. Maybe just to the back where the tonsils were?

 

Gabriel gently eased the ball-tipped tendril further into Jack’s mouth causing the man to drool a considerable amount over it and breath heavily in bliss through his nose. Jesus, Jack was really getting into this whole thing, rolling his tongue onto the underside of the tendril along with pulling at his restraints.

 

Raise two fingers if you’re okay and one if you need me to adjust anything that’s getting uncomfortable.

 

Jack immediately raised one finger and Gabriel slid the wet tendril out of Jack’s mouth. He cleared his throat slightly and swallowed before speaking. “Elbows are starting to cramp up a bit but other than that this is pretty fantastic.” Jack complemented, making Gabriel swell with joy at how well he was doing today. 

 

Gabriel gently gave the arms more slack so they could touch the cot and deployed some tendrils from the main veins over Jack’s arms to go massage his elbows directly, drawing a content sigh from his wearer.

 

Question, Jack.

 

“Shoot, Gabe.” Jack smiled encouragingly.

 

How far down your throat should I go? I don't want to suffocate you but you seem really aroused the farth I pushed it.

 

Jack flushed a bit and nipped his lower lip. “I got no gag reflexes to worry about so I guess we can us a ‘thumbs up to proceed’ and ‘thumbs down to back up’. If I make the ‘okay’ sign with my fingers then it’s perfect depth. Sound good?”

 

Okay. We’ll just modify the ‘stop’ and ‘go’ signs with the finger signs for ‘two’ and ‘three’ respectfully so we don't get confused, alright?

 

“Clear enough for me. Ready to kiss me again, Gabe?” Jack asked playfully, making Gabriel’s heart skip a beat happily in response.

 

Always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'To Zanarkand' is stuck in my head as we draw closer to the end of part one. Literally one more chapter unless I feel extra stuff needs to be fleshed out more since I'm still working on what will be chapter one of part two.
> 
> Edit: Woops. Forgot the last part.
> 
> This is actually the end of part one of the story. Sorry. 
> 
> I will be taking a bit of a break to work on Part Two and make sure I'm satisfied with it before I begin to upload chapters again. Thank you for sticking with me through this train ride of feels for clothing!


	9. Post Recall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiatus is turning more into 'expect a bit more downtime between chapters'. Please enjoy!
> 
> Note that this is the beginning of Act 2, in a sense, for the story.

A few months after the fall of Overwatch...

 

Jesse’s warm back to his own reminds him. Anchors his mind in place. In the present. He shuffles under the sheets, draws a groan of protest from Jesse. His company wants to sleep in while he sit up in bed, feet to the cool floor. He runs a hand through his short, blonde hair that is gradually turning white from the monstrous amount of stress he was under for the past two months. He feels ashamed.

 

His eyes glanced downwards. Kneepads and elbow pads were still on even after he changed into pajamas after his shower last night. He didn't wear them going in but… Jesse must have been too tired to scold him for putting them back on.

 

His left wrist was wrapped up in a cast since he shattered two days ago from a fall; Wasn't wearing his wrist pads. The right wrist pad is on the night stand with the left one, Hanzo’s idle Stetson form waiting for them both to wake up. His eyes catch sight of his teddy bear laying on the floor, likely falling off the bed while he slept. A pale hand reaches down to pluck it off the floor and he holds it tightly to his chest as he feels pain building up inside of him once more.

 

Tears roll down his cheeks. He whispering ‘I’m sorry’ over and over to the bear as if it its feelings were hurt from the fall, chapped lips kissing the back of the bear's head like it would make both of their pain disappear. 

 

The mattress shifts and sheets are shuffled behind him before a pair of arms wrap around him from behind. 

 

“I didn't mean to wake you.” The blonde apologies, drawing a soft chuckle from Jesse McCree. 

 

“Ain't nothin’ wrong it, Partner. I ain't sleepin’ with ya because of pity, nor sexual attraction.” He quickly adds, giving a little wink to his actual husband watching quietly on the nightstand. The device strapped to the hat allows for Hanzo’s exasperated sigh to come through clearly without needing synchronization to be heard. A design Winston made after the ‘secret’ got out about the combat robes having unique personalities like humans after the Omnic Crisis was over. 

 

“It’s four in the morning. You two have only had three hours of sleep.” Hanzo insisted softly.

 

“We’ll get back to bed, Hanzo, don’t ya worry so much.” McCree yawned as he rested the side of his face on the blonde’s head. “You need help gettin’ to the bathroom?” 

 

The blonde nodded his head. “Yes.”

 

Jesse removed his arms from his friend and crawled off the bed, wearing only his boxers and a loose-fitting t-shirt. He went over to the nightstand to plop Hanzo on his mess of brown locks before handing his comrade the right wrist guard to him, putting his hands casually on his hips as he stretched out his back. After the blonde secured it on his hand, Jesse walked over in front of him and held his palms out to him. 

 

He reached for Jesse and frowned when the former Blackwatch commander pulled his hands slowly away from the ones reaching for it.

 

“Ya can do this. I’m here to catch ya if ya fall anywhere but backwards on the bed.” Jesse smiled encouragingly, trying to give his friend the strength to compel himself up and onto his shaky legs.

 

He hated this so much. This feeling of humiliation to lean on others as they put up with his rehabilitation and physical therapy. Sure, Jesse had all the time in the world to spend with him since Overwatch, and Blackwatch, by extension, got shut down and banned by the PETRAS Act. Now he and Jesse lived at the Gibraltar base with the few remaining members that were aware of the base still being operational.

 

It was hard to acknowledge that everything they worked for was now gone. Even harder to accept was that Jack Morrison was dead to the rest of the world. His knees creaked as he struggled to push himself up and try to keep balanced as his fingertips brushed against Jesse’s. This was his life now. His reality.

 

The cool air in the room helped keep them both comfortable in the hot summer. He only wore PJs because that was natural to him, what he always worn because he was always so cold. 

 

Because he always had Gabriel on and had to look the part of always being cold to throw others off to the reason he wore his jacket all the time...

 

“Good. Good. You’re doing great.” Jesse smiled proudly. He really grew into a fine man through the crisis and Overwatch’s formation. Filled out in the muscle department and grew a nice beard on top of it too. He was very handsome but only had eyes for his hat. The bastard was crazy enough to get a marriage certificate too but he doubted that someone marrying his hat was the weirdest thing anyone ever married officially in history.

 

Maybe they would have gotten to that point too.

 

The blonde took a step forward. The motions of walking were easy enough but balance wasn’t coming to him so naturally. Anything that required balance and coordination were hard on him, driving him many times to the breaking point in frustration. He had cried so many times and wanted to give up from how painful and embarrassing this all was. Jack Morrison was a proud man, the fucking Strike Commander of Overwatch and saved the world during the Omnic Crisis. To not be able to do something as easy as walking and carrying for himself was almost as bad as being written off as dead.

 

“Come on. You don’t have to stand still for a whole minute to get your bearings, Partner. Let’s get going.” Jesse teased playfully. He was ever the encouraging friend, one of the few that did not abandon him after the explosion at Zurich, and took it upon himself to get him back on his feet. Most of the time it was more literal than figurative.

 

The blonde took a deep breath and started walking towards Jesse while the cowboy walked backwards toward the private bathroom several feet away from the bed. He was halfway through week one of his rehabilitation after being hospitalized for who-knows-how-long. There were a lot of gaps in his memories from the time of the explosion to last week; months in a coma or otherwise blank, likely too insignificant to remember if he woke up for a moment or two. 

 

“Looking good. Keep at it.”

 

He chuckled nervously as Jesse continued to encourage him forward, feet rolling over the carpet where they were working on constructing puzzles earlier in the night. All the pieces were cleaned up and in their boxes but said boxes were still on the floor and it was pitch black in the room. He was nervous even when Jesse wasn’t. Falling was painful, especially when falling on something solid with edges. He had enough bruises on his body from the more awkward falls that couldn’t be cushioned by his protective joint padding and many of them were still sore.

 

He didn’t have them healed for a reason, wanting to know pain like everyone else rather than taking a shortcut with advanced healing technology. Many called him stubborn but it was what he wanted to do.

 

They made it to the bathroom with no falls; Another successful walk. Jesse waits outside the door while the blonde goes and relieves himself. The door is shut but not locked incase another fall happened. He feels like an old man; pathetic, and a shadow of Jack Morrison prior to the explosion.

 

He flushes the toilet and washes his hands in the sink, his heart still heavy in his chest as he looks himself in the mirror.

 

Dull red eyes stare back at him rather than those pretty sapphires that he fell in love with several decades ago. He brought a hand up to run through his- no, Jack’s hair as he feels his heart start to crumble. Gabriel gripped the edge of the sink as he felt his legs giving out under him from his lack of concentration. 

 

It was so hard to adjust to everything. Jack being torn out of his life, Gabriel becoming the caretaker of Jack’s body, and learning how to be a functional human being were so heavy to carry all at once.

 

“Come on, Gabe. You’re going to be okay.”

 

Jesse pulled him up so he was standing up straight and not slouching over the sink. How the cowboy tolerated his existential crisis was beyond Gabriel’s comprehension. Jesse just fucking smiled and rolled with it after Gabriel woke up and realized he was controlling Jack’s body. 

 

Well… That would be cold to say he didn’t mourn Jack’s departure. Everyone did. Hense why he was reported dead to the media even though his body still lived on.

 

Gabriel couldn’t understand why everyone assumed Jack was really gone. He was still alive after the blast. Gabriel took the brunt of it with his shields and kept Jack’s heart beating while they were waiting for rescue to arrive under the rumble. 

 

He shook his head, not wanting to replay the whole memory in his head when he needed to calm down enough to enter a sleep cycle.

 

“Thanks.” Gabriel spoke with a gravely mockery of Jack’s voice, earning a warm smile from the cowboy as he helped him walk out of the bathroom. 

 

Jesse made him walk the rest of the way back to the bed, walking backwards again as Gabriel walked towards him, the tips of their fingers barely brushing together while he reached for Jesse. Everything about being human was so frightening to Gabriel, especially since he was just borrowing the body until they can find Jack again. He had no intention of staying like this.

 

He loved Jack too much to even consider living out the rest of his life without him, especially in his body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. 
> 
>  
> 
> You guys were curious about Gabriel and if he would get a body...


	10. Learning to walk

Who exactly stole Jack from his body and how they forced Gabriel to fill in where he theoretically shouldn’t was a mystery they all discussed almost daily. The amount of scientific and religious debates Gabriel had to sit through were staggering, even with only seven people living at the base. Everyone had something to say, even if it didn’t bring them closer to finding an actual answer of who the culprits were.

 

Jack was definitely still alive after the blast, even with Gabriel having to manually restart his heart once with a tendril impaled into his love’s chest. A severely damaged security camera showed Jack moving at various points; mostly hands and feet shifting slightly from what they could see under the rubble piled on him. The blast knocked him unconscious mostly while Gabriel took the majority of the damage, rendering him a black ink pile over Jack’s nude body. Things Gabriel remembered clearly happening even though the camera was unable to catch it from that angle.

 

Jesse sat next to him in the conference room while he yawned, propping his boots up on the counter and reclining in his chair while the others argued over the footage. A blue tendril ran covertly down Jesse’s back from Hanzo’s hat form, trailing under the handles of the chairs to wrap around Gabriel’s hand supportively. Gabriel hated the pointless arguments in these meetings when they were suppose to be finding out who shot out the security camera before Jack Morrison was spirited away. Jesse would have been able to get those responsible if Winston, Torbjorn, Angela, and pretty much everyone else was vetoing them using Blackwatch methods to get this done faster. 

 

He wore the yellow shirt with the bald superhero under his red, white, and blue ‘76’ jacket that he materialized over it, wanting to wear something of Jack’s on his body even though he could materialized clothes over the body without the restrictions he had before as a combat robe. Gabriel needed all the comfort he could get to deal with how hostile everyone was to him, outwardly or not.

 

“The likelihood of Jack Morrison’s consciousness being transported and contained outside of his body is dismal at best! The technology simply does not exist! We cannot even do full brain transfers and there is still a healthy brain in that body.” Angela argued.

 

“So? I didn’t have a brain yet I was still able to have a consciousness and be transferred around. Who is to say the flash that blinded Jack and I wasn’t a new tech gadget capable of removing souls? SEP documentation and such was leaked to the media after Overwatch’s formation, Angela.” Gabriel countered. “Who’s to say someone didn’t read those documents and make a device like that?”

 

Torbjorn slammed his hand on the table. “Are you implying that you have a soul?!”

 

Gabriel growled in annoyance as he narrowed his eyes at the engineer. “Stay on topic. I used the word because it sums up the idea of a consciousness being able to be contained, I’m not even remotely talking about religion, Torbjorn.”

 

He huffed as he sat back in his chair. “No better than a damn Omnic now. Except you can apparently snatch bodies.”

 

Gabriel narrowed his red eyes at the man and gripped his fist that wasn't being held delicately by Hanzo. To think he once repaired him after battle back during the crisis before they found a better method thanks to Winston and the science team; a man Jack highly respected.

 

“Fuck off, I’m not remotely interested in anything but giving Jack his body back. I’ve been saying it since day one and I don’t plan on going back on it.”

 

Torbjorn spat in disgust, clearly not buying Gabriel’s honesty one bit, like usual. If Jack didn’t have respect for the guy Gabriel would have decked him in the face with a tendril since he could still produce them out of Jack’s body after they merged. If he didn’t have to hide his true form from the world he would have been easily able to manipulate Jack’s limbs like a marionette with his tendrils but nooooooooo; Jesse said the whole thing was too creepy.

 

“Gabriel is right that we need to stop debating about him and focus on how our enemy could have spirited Jack Morrison away.” Winston spoke up, forcibly shutting down that uselessly line of questioning and focusing on what really mattered. “Let’s stop thinking that it isn't possible and assume it actually happened. What would they gain from having Jack but not his enhanced body and why go to such an extreme like blowing up the headquarters just to get at him? Wouldn't a battlefield make it easier to get the jump on him and Gabriel?”

 

“If I might speak.” Hanzo’s audio device spoke as blue tendril rose from the hat and waved to get Winston’s attention.

 

“Go ahead, Hanzo.” Winston insisted as an exaggerated groan rolled out of Torbjorn’s mouth in annoyance.

 

“As a combat robe, I find our most vulnerable times to be when we have to masquerade as a harmless article of clothing or accessory. On the battlefield, we are able to react without hesitation and manipulate the barrier we project around our partner. In our idle states, our wearer is open to assault from multiple angles and there is no active barrier projected over them so energy is being conserved. We were created for the battlefield and concealment in plain sight. Our flaw is we cannot react to situations where our enemy tries to attack when we do not expect them.”

 

“You believe Jack Morrison was plain assassinated, Hanzo?” Winston asked curiously.

 

Hanzo retracted his tendril back into the lining of the hat and was quiet for a moment. “Yes. The flash Gabriel saw was the flash of the gun muzzle when he was shot. Jack Morrison was the Strike Commander of Overwatch. Our enemies were looking to disorientate with the explosion or at least kill Gabriel so they could take his life with no fear.”

 

Jesse frowned at that but kept quiet as eyes fell on Gabriel once again. Gabriel gently pushed the tendril that held his hand away and shoved both of his hands in his pockets. So much for showing support by siding with everyone else with the assassination garbage instead of actually considering what he heard before the light. Hanzo was rational but also a giant dick.

 

“I have an avenue of thought to explore.” Genji offered as his master, Zenyatta, sat quietly next to him.

 

“Go ahead, Genji.” Winston allowed.

 

“I believe the assassination angle Hanzo proposed has merit but the fact that the enemy did not check the body after the ‘flash’, whatever its source, implies their motives might be in line with Gabriel's proposal. Why leave Jack Morrison's body unchecked if his combat robe is obviously working to keep him alive like in the footage, and after all that effort to bomb the headquarters in the first place? It doesn't add up as simply as everyone assumes. Their motive still remains up in the air.” Genji explained.

 

Winston hummed in agreement as the usual naysayers stayed quiet, at least for now, with the ‘spirited away’ theory taken out anyways. It made Gabriel pissed, literally seething in his chair as he just kept his mouth shut while they talked about Jack being dead like it didn't mean the whole world to him. That his theory was just a mourner’s daydream and not something technologically feasible. Then what the fuck was he and why was he controlling Jack’s body like it was his the whole time?!

 

The meeting ended with new leads to explore but that wasn't anything Gabriel was part of. Jesse walked slowly next to Gabriel as he pushed his walker forward, gritting his teeth from hyper concentration on the task of walking and his frustration that his inability to be a functional human was slowing them all down. One step forward, one at a time while others weaved around them without consideration, they didn't have to learn how to walk unlike him. 

 

“You want to watch Bald Hero Man, Gabe? Been wanting to rewatch that again since the opening is stuck in my head again.” Jesse drawled casually as they walked slowly together from the conference room, likely going to take forty-five to get to the dorms at the snail’s pace they were going. Gabe felt bad for holding Jesse back.

 

“Yeah. I- I think I need a ‘pick-me-up’ show for how shit this week has been so far.” He managed to speak as he tried to not look down while pushing his walker, his legs quivering from the strain. It was one of the few shows that Gabriel watched with Jack and Jesse that he really enjoyed back when Jack was around. They would watch it once a year, marathoning it in one or two days depending on if they got dragged out of Jesse’s room for some reason. The UN overlords banned Jack from marathoning after inspectors caught him sleeping at his desk for a surprise inspection of the headquarters the day after the yearly marathon. Didn't matter that he only marathons one show a year, the all-mighty UN couldn't stand the Strike Commander nodding off for five minutes. The horror of it all!

 

Speaking of horror.

 

“You should probably tell Winston that we will be sleeping in tomorrow, just in case, Jesse.” 

 

Jesse chuckled and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You worry too much, Gabe. Winston doesn't send me on missions anymore. You won't come out of your room to eat if I’m not there anyways.”

 

Gabriel narrowed his eyes as the cowboy and brushed his hand off his shoulder. “Angela or Lucio will still check up on me if you leave, McCree. Don't act all high and mighty.”

 

“Sorry, let me correct myself then; You’ll eat but won't come out of your room.”

 

A black tendril came out of Gabriel's shoulder and slapped the stetson right off his head. Hanzo oddly let himself take the blow and hit the tile floor as Jesse's jaw feel out his mouth from the sight. Gabriel retracted the tendril and continued pushing his walker down the hallway slowly as Jesse scrambled to pick up Hanzo and check him for damage.

 

“The hell was that for, Gabe?!” Jesse yelled as he brushed off the dirt on Hanzo’s idle form before glaring at Hanzo. “And why the hell did you LET him knock you off, Hanzo?!”

 

“His intent was to show his hurt without hurting you. I deserved his scorn for the meeting anyways so I allowed him to lash out at me rather than hurt you and drive me to hurt him in return. I am undamaged, as you can see. I believe he merely wanted to shock you by knocking me off.” Hanzo hummed as he dissected the interaction for himself and his wearer. Jesse frowned and pulled him back on his head.

 

“He could have said he didn't like my joke.” Jesse grumbled as he shoved his hands into his jeans and turned to watch Gabriel continue to slowly push himself down the hall. 

 

“The fact that you do not realize his pain makes me wish he would have struck you, Jesse. It would be justified now that you let those idiotic words out of your mouth.”

 

“It’s the damn truth though, Hanzo. I went away for a week after bringing Gabriel here to investigate the remains of the Swiss building and I get reports from Angela several days later saying he hadn't eaten since I left and wanted me to return. The guy is stubborn and lonely.” Jesse huffed, more annoyed at himself than Gabriel now.

 

“You care a great deal about him, Jesse. As do I as well.”

 

“I just… I want him to be happy, Hanzo…” Jesse's head drooped downwards as he traced the brim of his hat with a finger slowly. “It’s what I would want if something like that happened to us. Take my body and live on, you know.”

 

“That’s incredibly cruel to ask me to do that, Jesse. You have no idea how afraid I am of Gabriel's theory being true.” Hanzo quietly confesses to his wearer.

 

“Yeah. Tell me bout it.” Jesse sighed before heading off to catch up with Gabriel, keeping a bit of a distance behind the man so he could cool off and not feel so rushed.

 

\--

 

Angela removed the brace around Gabriel’s wrist later in the day and took an x-ray to see how it was healing. Gabriel's inability to produce a barrier on his body was a big concern even though Jack’s healing factor was still functioning as usual. He was wearing a white hospital gown and completely naked underneath so that Angela wouldn't have to play a guessing game if he had absorbed the gown or not. Do it once, for curiosity’s sakes, and all of a sudden you’re the doctor’s number one troublemaker.

 

“Your wrist is almost fully healed but I want you to keep this brace on just in case you have a fall.” Angela slipped an extra thick wrist brace immobilizer on Gabriel and made sure the fit was snug before she started doing a variety of other tests to him. Most revolved around the synchronization data and various other tests that she and Torbjorn created for Gabriel and Hanzo to assess their health a few years ago before the explosion. 

 

Her brows crinkled in perplexion as she looked the brain scan over again. It was the same shit every time, his brain looking like a drawing of what a brain might look like to ‘someone who never saw one before’, to quote Torbjorn. It was another mystery that Gabriel added to his arsenal of evidence that Jack Morrison was still alive somewhere else if Gabriel was filling the void in his skull while Jack was elsewhere. It took four hours for him to be recovered after the explosion so maybe Jack was scooped out of his own head like ice cream. That was a visual he found more appealing than the bloody mess he was used to seeing on the battlefield from a headshot.

 

Gabriel idly rotated the orb Zenyatta gave to ‘occupy his time’ before he went into the medical bay. The patterns made in the metal was enjoyable to run his fingers over, reminding him of the many objects Jack would let him fiddle with in his pocket way back when. The metal was aged but not rusted, care being made to maintain it and no sharp grooves that Gabriel’s fingers could get caught on. He rolled it in his hand as he looked from Angela to the orb, feeling a lot more content having something to distract him from boredom. Gabriel curiously wondered if there was anything inside of it but passed off the idea as being unlikely since he had seen the omnic beat Talon grunts to the point of unconsciousness once in the video archive.

 

Gabriel didn't really have a problem with omnics, it was the general opinion he held with everyone before he went from a passive observer to suddenly thrust into a world he had never been expected to socialize with. Now his opinion actually did matter and his cautious approach revealed a lot of particular nasty attitudes towards him, mostly because of his occupation of Jack’s body and that no one really knew what happened to make Gabriel be put in control.

 

He catalogued people based on their former behavior towards Jack Morrison and less towards himself when he was a combat robe. Jack expected Gabriel to always think the best of people and scolded his snarky comments about others almost immediately, claiming that Gabriel didn't ‘know them well enough’. Well, that’s all and good and he’s doing his best to live with someone of the biggest dicks Jack expected him to tolerate and not knock them flat on their asses. Jesse McCree and Hanzo were literally family to him at this point, they always had been since SEP. He probably would have given up on living if it weren't for their constant support and affection for the existential crisis Gabriel lived everyday.

 

He and Hanzo had an eighty percent synchronization rate when he put him on once just out of curiosity. The lack of romantic intention between them opened up the door for new interpretation of the synchronization scale and that platonic feelings were also a factor, not that they tried to do a transformation. Jack’s body was Jack’s body and he was just keeping it warm for him before his return. It wasn't his right to mess with it like that for idle curiosity.

 

Torbjorn was justifiably against his existence. The man had seen the horrors of the omnic rebellion unfold before his very eyes as one of the creatures of the omnics as a whole. He was even maintaining both him and the omnic monk, Zenyatta, regardless of his hostilities towards them. A work ethic Gabriel found admirable if not for the short man’s shitty attitude when fixing them up. Even now, Torbjorn still asked for him to come in for check ups, working hard on improved methods of chemical imbalances without risking harm to Jack’s body and making new devices with Winston and Mei to better account for the human factors in those chemical readouts now that he was merged with Jack’s body. Torb would probably whisk him over to Winston’s lab when Angela finished up with him.

 

It still didn’t mean he couldn’t hate the guy on a personal level though. He really was an insufferable prick.

 

Angela was a bit harder to pinpoint. On one hand, she was Jack’s doctor and wanted what was best for his health. On the other, Gabriel felt like a parasite when he walked into the medical bay for any reason at all and she would look at him with an almost sad smile. Jack had confined in him multiple times that he felt Angela held a higher regard for him than the others did, possibly a one-sided crush but he didn’t want to think that way of her.

 

Jack only had feelings for Gabriel and Gabriel only held those kinds of feelings for Jack, in return.

 

Her eyes never held malice for Gabriel, even after he took control of Jack’s body, but her curiosity seemed to heighten like the rest of the scientists in the Gibraltar base. Gabriel never really developed a sense of personal space or decency until a few weeks after he became in charge of Jack’s body. Jesse was glued to him at the hip in those early weeks and was uncharacteristically rough in how protective he was. He was the one who taught him how to say ‘no’ to medical examination he did not want or felt were too invasive.

 

‘Yer not someone’s petri dish experiment anymore, Gabe. Don’t let them boss you around like you are one.’ Was something he said a lot in those days, stepping in when Angela or the others got too curious, to ask what the purpose of certain experiments were and sometimes flat out saying ‘no’ for Gabriel. He was a role model for Gabe, an assertive force of nature under that goofy cowboy smile of his.

 

Of course, the former head of Overwatch’s black ops division would be good at knowing where the line was and if the scientists were overstepping it, unlike Gabriel. How a guy like Jesse handled Blackwatch was something Gabriel couldn’t get his head around but it didn’t change him at all from the man him and Jack met during SEP. Jesse and Jack had rough patches, especially in the latter years of Overwatch, but things improved dramatically as Jack started lining up Jesse up to take over after a heart to heart they had. 

 

Jack planned on stepping down and going back to running missions on the ground as a captain again. He wanted to do that so badly, get back out there and help people in need. Gabriel approved whole-heartedly but it was not to be, it seems.

 

Gabriel glanced back at Angela and he realized she was staring at him with a melancholy expression. She was beautiful. They all were. Gabriel loved how human’s expressed their chemical releases in their bodies to form smiles and move themselves in such intricate ways. He especially loved the way Angela, Lena, and Amelie dances together when Amelie led some dancing classes at the Overwatch HQ before she was kidnapped. He made Jack take part in it and made a most excellent leotard for him, helping Jack cheat a bit by snapping barriers to limbs and joints to solidify them for the milliseconds Jack needed to hold a pose as Amelie instructed. Jack got scolded so many times for being ‘too stiff’, regardless of how well Gabriel molded Jack’s body to fit the way the woman posed. Dancing was an enigma for Gabriel but he desperately missed those moments he had with the others, even if he was living them as a spectator.

 

“I miss dancing.” Gabriel spoke quietly as he shifted his gaze to the orb he was tracing with his fingers.

 

“Huh?” Angela was rightly surprised by the sudden confession as his glanced over at her. “Oh. Right. You were there for our dance practices with Amelie.” She smiled nostalgically at the memory as she turned fully in her chair to face Gabriel on the cot.

 

“Yeah. Jack hated doing it but he was eager to please since I never really took interest in things outside of our room like movies and video games.”

 

“Right, none of us knew you and Hanzo were sentient back then.” She then blinked curiously. “You played videos games? With a controller?”

 

“I could only play games that had 2D support since it was too difficult to understand digital 3D space and coordinate the controller to move the character properly especially with some of the reflexes the action/fighting games required.”

 

Angela nodded her head happily, definitely interested in the topic as she turned on the recording function on her tablet. “Some of the cleaning staff had noted that there was a chest in Jack’s room that contained children’s toys and stimulation toys for children with needs. Were you actually the one partaking in the mental enrichment devices or did Jack keep the toys around to bring them with to peacekeeping missions? The later has been documented extensively.”

 

“Yes, it was both. Jack always bought a bunch of toys to give out to children but would always allow me to pick out one while he was the leader of Overwatch. Most of the toys he bought were simply stimulants for long meetings that he could put in his coat pocket and allow me to occupy myself. I would never let him go anywhere without me and vice versa so that was our usual arrangement.”

 

“What sort of items would he let you bring into meetings?”

 

Gabriel had to think back on that for a moment. “Usually it was items that could be manipulated and was quiet, so definitely not electronics. I went through quite a few Rubik cubes, those ridiculous swiss army knives after Jack blunted all the sharp tips and edges, foreign coins from countries that still use them, sand, wooden toy soldiers, plastic cars, a lot of things, Basically. Jack did have a habit of shoving everything into his pocket and ‘still losing it’, right?” Gabriel smirked mischievously, drawing a giggle from Angela.

 

“No way. That was actually you ‘sampling’ things?”

 

“Right on the money, Angela.”

 

She clapped her hands together in delight at guessing it right. It made Gabriel smile warmly at her.

 

“What was the strangest thing Jack ever made you sample?” Angela asked excitedly as she scooched her chair in closer to the cot.

 

“Pfft. ‘Made’ me sample? Are you joking? I had to practically beg the guy to give stuff to try. He was damn stubborn too!”

 

“Oh my god, Gabriel. You didn’t!”

 

“I totally did! It was also why Jack never got pick pocketed wherever he went so he would have to buy exotic food he would never eat and shove a bit of it into his pocket for me in return!”

 

They both were laughing so hard at that, genuine tears trickling out from the corners of their eyes as they continued to holler together. It was a beautiful noise coming from Angela, one that he hadn’t heard in so long along with her losing her composure as she doubled over the tablet in her lap. Laughter and joy have been on such short supply in the Gibraltar base after the fall so any bit of this Gabriel could experience for himself was like a breath of breath air in a stagnant room.

 

After finishing up with Angela and Torbjorn, Jesse walked with him back to his room where they both took a seat on the carpet in front of the bed after he closed the door and put Gabe’s walker off to the side. Jesse reached over to grab a thin children’s book off the shelve of books he was ordering in for Gabriel as they taught him how to read and write. Jack dabbled in the idea too at one point but the Omnic Crisis and formation of Overwatch always made them too busy or too tired to continue. He crawled over to Gabriel and both of them sat with their backs to the bed to get comfortable before he opened the book up, nudging the book so Gabriel would take it.

 

“Alright, Gabe. You know the drill. Read two books and we’ll go make lunch together in the kitchen. Read only one and I’m making lunch by myself while ya have to wait at the table. I know ya have it in ya.” Jesse winked playfully as he encouraged Gabe.

 

Gabriel scowled, annoyed that Jesse was dangling one of his favorite things to do in the day in front of him to get him to push himself on reading. He didn't mind reading at all but Jesse had a weird impression that he disliked regardless of what he or even Hanzo said, on the contrary. Gabriel rolled his eyes and sighed as he pulled the first page open to read the title of the book.

 

“‘Grimm Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm’.” Gabriel paused to register what he just read and smiled slightly. A spark of recognition flowed through him at the author's’ name and he quickly looked back at the cover before looking at the smug grin on Jesse’s. “Please tell me these aren't the censored versions.”

 

“Nope. It was a real pain in the ass to hunt down picture book versions of the English edition that left all the gritty details in. I think Reinhardt pulled some strings back in Germany to get someone to properly translate a German-edition when I mentioned to him that you liked the Grimm stories. No idea how he managed it.”

 

Gabriel set down the book and moved over to the bookshelf noting that there was several volumes of the picture book editions of the Grimm tales in a line on the shelf and turned to Jesse with absolute cheer on his face. There was no way he was only going to read one of these thin books with Jesse today. Absolutely not a chance in Hell.

 

Fucked up fairy tales were his jam.

 

Just because he was on a lower reading level than everyone else that didn't mean he had to continue to suffer for shitty stories meant for early grade schooler and Jesse McCree completely agreed with him. But wait, didn't this kind of stuff take time to do, even when rushed? He looked at Jesse skeptically with a brow raised.

 

“Wait. How long have you been planning on getting me these books? Doesn't it take a few months to translate, edit, and then print the books? There has to be at least twenty volumes here, Jesse McCree.”

 

Jesse chuckled nervously as he pulled at the red bandana around his neck. “A while?”

 

“I was in a coma for ‘a while’.”

 

“Hey. I was the one who found ya before ya went into a coma.”

 

“You’ve been planning on teaching me to read since the building exploded?” He asked dryly. 

 

“Um. Black Ops Commander?” Jesse pointed to himself as he looked at Gabriel incredulously. “It’s part of my job to think ahead and plan for these kinds of things. Or was. Now, I get to be a physical therapist/teacher/trainer for one of my best friends in need!” He spoke proudly as he put his hands on his hips and pushed his chest out. 

 

Gabriel sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose before chuckling softly as he released it. “I guess so. Jack was going to make you Strike Commander so I guess I should have seen it coming.”

 

Jesse shrugged his shoulders with a smile on his face. “That’s what the enemies of Blackwatch thought all the time. They thought I was shitty leader because I’m a bit eccentric.” He winked playfully. “Gets ‘em everytime!”

 

Gabriel smiled and moved back over to where Jesse was against the bed, getting comfortable once more before opening the book. “Enough talking and let's read the shit Jack was too uncomfortable to read to me himself.”

 

Jesse laughed at that. “Sounds good, Partner. Take it away!”


	11. Leviathan

It had been two years since Gabriel awoken in Jack’s body, his other half robbed in the explosion that brought down the Zürich HQ, and he was finally starting to reach the point in his therapy where he could run and jump without much difficulty. Unfortunately the stress from such a tight recovery schedule killed all the color in his hair, leaving it a sad shade of white that made Jack look so much older than his body actually was. Angela has been watching his health too closely for it to be something other than stress that caused it, after all. It made Gabriel remember Jack’s father; the handsome older gentleman who’s compliments still make Gabriel happy to remember when he was having and especially bad day. He missed both of them greatly, no matter how insistent Jack’s mother was about hanging him up on that smell coat rack during dinner. 

“Jack’s folks? You’re wonderin’ how they’re doin’?” Jesse asked curiously as he spotted for Gabriel on the weight lifting bench, just focusing on keeping the bar stable as a warm up before gradually adding weights to the ends as he did reps. He hummed idly as he tilted his head to the side in thought. “I guess I could ask someone to check up on them since you’re Jack’s significant other.”

Gabriel thought about what that meant. ‘Significant other’. Jack’s lover? Jack had said that he loved him and that was such a chore to get the idiot to fucking say those damn words after years of uncertainty but to be considered his ‘significant other’? They were never ‘official’. Jack dy- disappearing allowed him to finally reveal his existence along with Hanzo’s, coming out of the shadows into the light. 

“Another weird question, Jesse: Why are you so committed to making me functional? Do you owe Jack your life in a way I don't know about? Hanzo bullying you into it? Do you need me to act as an agent for Overwatch?”

Jesse took the bar and pulled it back onto the holder after Gabriel finished his reps, looking down at him curiously as he rested his arms on the bar. “Me? A motive to be a decent individual after all the shit I had to do to make the world a safer place and have it all come down on us?” Jesse chuckled in amusement as he brought a hand up to trace the brim of his hat. “It was the opportunity I didn't even know I wanted until you woke up again and were…” He quieted as he spoke, the smile gradually fading from his lips sadly. “Crying for Jack.”

Right… He woke up a few times doing that the first two days. It was the craziest thing ever to be hit by so many sensations and not have Jack holding him tightly, telling him it would be okay when he got overwhelmed. Jesse bravely slipped onto the bed and held him. Hanzo trailing down several tendrils to wrap around Gabriel as well, making several doctors pass out from the sight of a hat producing blue tendrils in the first place. Absolute chaos those first two days.

Jesse then looked at Gabriel fondly and he tipped his hat back a bit. “Listen. You and I are doing all of this work so we can get you a vacation. Just the three of us going to see the world, eat amazing food and get drunk off our asses in the best way! No way in Hell am I going to kick either of us back into service when Overwatch is still banned. You deserve to experience the world too, Gabe.”

Gabriel blinked at Jesse in confusion and almost about panicked as Jesse’s smile turned to a pained expression. It didn't help that Gabriel was suddenly pulled into the other man’s arms as Jesse held him tightly. 

“Jesse.” Hanzo murmured softly to his husband. “You need to explain your feelings better than that.”

“Look who's talking.” He huffed lightly in response before shaking his head. “Right. Gabe. You’ve been to places that were not war zones many times but you’ve never experienced anything like walking in a crowd, making friends outside of the base who aren't linked to Overwatch, eat good food, and maybe spend a week at the beach. There’s a whole lot more to livin’ than fightin’, Gabe. Jack would want you to experience that.”

Gabriel frowned, troubled by the mixture of feelings swirling within him as Jesse painted such a nice and relaxing image of something he wanted. He wanted to experience those things so badly and always dreamed of it as Jack wore him around the world. But what fun could he possibly have if Jack was still out there somewhere waiting for him? He didn't want to live in a world where Jack Morrison wasn't the one actually controlling his body and experiencing these things with Gabriel. His heart ached terribly as he dug his fingers into the back of Jesse’s sweater. 

Jack…

Gabriel remembered Jack laying on his stomach, clutching Gabriel's ink form in his arms regardless of being unconscious, Gabriel struggling to keep himself from melting away after the bombs detonated literally under their feet, one floor below. If it wasn't for the Blackwatch members that Jesse tipped them off about, and he hadn't had a barrier on at that moment- No, he needed to focus on keeping himself together and protecting Jack until help came!

But help came too late…

Gabriel gentle pushed them both apart and looked at Jesse sympathetically. “I can't. Not without Jack. Not when he’s out there waiting for us to come get him.”

Jesse frowned, deeply troubled by that answer, giving the same skeptical expression the rest of them had for the briefest of seconds, much to Gabriel's disappointment. It was the reality of the situation but Gabriel won't expect that Jack’s gone until they caught those responsible and force them to talk. 

“Just humor me, Jesse. I need to know for myself before I start thinking about- whatever I could possibly do. It's not my body and never will be.”

Jesse pitied him but slowly nodded his head like Gabriel knew he would. McCree would have Jack’s back to the bitter end so the same would be extended to Gabriel. That was the only constant in the world that Gabriel could count on. Everyone else just entertained him until he wasn't interesting to them anymore. He needed to go at learning faster than ever so he would have some decent safety net for himself than a pit of rocks when Overwatch stopped being so welcoming to him and Jesse. More so himself though.

He looked back at Jesse, more resolute than ever. “We’re going to try walking on the mats for the afternoon exercise, right?”

Jesse sighed and put on a smile for him. “Yeah. Ready to hit the road?”

“Let’s go.” Gabriel answered.

The majority of the Blackwatch space in the basement of Gibraltar was converted into a makeshift physical rehabilitation center filled with balance bars, blue training mats, a modified treadmill and an assortment of weight machines for muscle training. Gabriel pushed his walker into the spacious room with Jesse holding the door open for him and he promptly closed it afterwards with a click. Jesse flipped on the lights as Gabe pushed his walker over to the wall near the door, waiting for Jesse to approach him before the man offered his hand to him.

“Remember: The key is not to be afraid of fallin’, Gabe.” Jesse reminded him with a reassuring smile before he let Gabe take his hand firmly.

Jesse was more than right. He had his paddings all strapped in and double checked to make sure they were secure before leaving the room. It was alright to fall. Children fall all the time from the parenting videos Jesse showed him on day one and he had a better understanding of locomotion than they did by far. There was no need to be frustrated by not being able to run on week one. It would come naturally the more confident he got in moving.

They walked together slowly, Gabriel adjusting to not having a walker to lean on while Jesse held his hand merely for emotional support rather than to catch him. There was nothing wrong with his legs or nerves that really required traditional physical therapy but Jesse was going to make him use the machines anyways so he became more aware of the muscle groups in his body and how they flexed when under manageable pressure from the weights. It was incredibly helpful for Gabriel either way since he learned that muscles had limits in terms of how the could flex and turn without it being painful, something he never had to worry about when he was a combat robe in ink form.

He had a new appreciation for the things Jack pulled off when he was the master of his own body. All the crazy shit he pulled off during the Crisis, knowing exactly how he could push his body to the limit and beyond with Gabriel snapping barriers left and right on joints and muscles that tore for reasons he couldn’t fathom until now. Jack really had the utmost faith in Gabriel’s ability to accelerate his healing in order to get the job done and why he was so affectionate after they were out of danger.

He remembered the warmth of Jack’s hand on his shoulder, raising it so he could press his cheek against the fabric of Gabriel’s idle coat form. Whisper sweet praises that were genuine and touched him deeply while the drop ship or other vehicle pulled them out from the chaos. 

It wasn’t until now that he understood how much Jack truly appreciated Gabriel’s careful work and attention to detail while under high stress situations. It was all natural to him to respond faster than Jack’s own nerves to cut off damage and pain that would cause him to falter.

Especially, now that the barriers did not work.

Especially, now because he had no Jack…

They made it across the room to the floor mats without any problems and Jesse gave him a hug for not showing hesitation or looking down at the ground as they moved.

He could do this. It may take a while but he was going to save Jack with his own two hands and give him back his body.

\--

Torbjorn hummed softly as he typed away on his enlarged holo keyboard. Gabriel laid under a modified CAT scan machine, on a plastic table that moved under a giant half arc filled with advanced machinery meant to detect ever the faintest of chemical change as Winston sat next to him, typing away on his own holo keyboard. Both the engineer and the scientist worked together to come to a conclusion on his body’s current status, both the real parts that made up Gabe integrated into Jack’s body and Jack’s body itself. Angela was the one who had final says on interpretation of controversial testing results, if any came up during a session, but other wise they just softly discussed while the scan was ongoing and asked Gabriel a few questions from time to time.

Oddly enough, it was Torbjorn that always expressed more concern and curiosity for his state. Not very reassuring because of the man’s penchant for being a dick the moment they leave the room. He was one of the people on Gabe’s support team that he worried would eventually grow bored of him and that would start affecting the quality of care he could receive from him.

“Have you ingested any metals lately? Accidental absorption of a nut or bolt? Maybe through stepping on one?” The Swedish engineer asked Gabriel curiously.

“I’ve been wearing shoes lately, so I don’t think accidental absorption happened through that means.”

“Even in your room?”

Gabriel paused as he thought about Jesse doing maintenance on his metal arm two days ago and knew the possibility of him accidentally knocking a spare nut or screw to the floor from the desk always was a possibility.

“Maybe. I don’t remember stepping on anything but those little plastic building blocks on the carpet.”

Torbjorn’s face twisted sympathetically, likely having stepped on them as well before?

“Well, there’s small quantity of iron in your left foot that might need to be flushed out so it doesn’t lead to poisoning later.” Winston spoke up as the ring overhead slowly made it’s way further down over his legs. He typed in more commands into his keyboard, likely setting up a flush schedule sometime later in the day since it wasn’t heavily impairing him at the moment.

It wasn’t uncommon for Gabriel to inadvertently absorb foreign material into his body. He did that even when he was a combat robe since he loved sampling everything he could come in contact with that would not prove problematic to Jack or anyone else. He did absorb things to delay their enemies, if it was safe to breakdown. Gabriel remembered eating an entire hand scanner during the Crisis to significantly slow down their human pursuers when they turned out to be sympathizers to the god program they were hunting down. He got sick from that and had to be flushed at least ten times while Winston and Torbjorn chewed the shit out of Jack for letting him do such a risky thing.

It was fucking hilarious hearing the assholes on the other side of the door screaming ‘where’s the fucking door scanner?!’ though! It was totally worth it.

The scanner started slowly moving back upwards, back to his head, and Gabriel had to keep himself in check not to growl in annoyance. Why they liked looking at his sludgy brain so much was anyone’s guess. Maybe they were developing a fetish for it or something. He had no idea what those math-types found arousing.

“Does my brain still look like a child’s finger painting project?” Gabriel sighed.

“Yes.” Torbjorn answered simply as his fingers and claw typed faster on the keyboard. “Just taking video recordings like usual. No harm done.”

Says you, Asshole.

“Any theories yet on why it looks like that?” Gabriel asked.

“Winston?” Torbjorn spoke as he continued to view footage on his solo screen.

The gorilla scientist sighed heavily for a moment before speaking. “A week’s worth of day isn’t anything particularly conclusive since Angela only gave us the go ahead for this when McCree started your physical therapy. But, so far, we theorize that it might just be where your core is residing in Jack Morrison’s body. It would explain the ever fluid nature of Jack’s brain and the lack of brain activity that you would normally see in a human during these scans.” He explained simply. “My only issue is the fact that there is still a silhouette of a human brain you can see in the scans. We’re still trying to figure out if the machine is trying to map in a human brain or not, an image artifact created by the software. It’s all very much a work in progress to adjust the machine to work with your body to give us a more accurate picture of what is going on inside.“

“That seems fair.” Gabriel agreed. The scientists have told him it could take months to years to get the machines to properly and accurately diagnose his body, even with both of them having ample time to work on fine tuning it. “Can I go now?”

“A few more minutes.” Torbjorn answered simply in a way that made Gabriel grit his teeth.

He couldn’t wait to get out of this place and get over to the kitchen to start fixing up lunch with Jesse since he earned a cooking lesson by reading two books today.

\--

The kitchen was oddly empty considering it was one in the afternoon but then he remembered that there was hardly anyone on the base now. It was one of the more difficult things for Gabriel to understand, other than waking up in Jack’s body, that Overwatch was dismantled. An organization that did an incredible amount of good in the world was brought down for reasons they were still searching for. What did they do so wrong to piss someone off enough to make them want to destroy them? It was hard to comprehend, even with the claims the media uncovered about Blackwatch, it felt so unreal that hurting bad people to save the lives of countless others would be so wrong.

Was his way of thinking too jaded? 

His appetite faded quickly as the media images flashed in his memories and the way Jesse McCree…

He had to leave, push his walker back to his room, and lock the door behind him. Jesse respected his need for privacy as long as he left the door connecting to their rooms unlocked in case of emergency. He only used the side door twice since Gabriel was relocated back to Jack’s old room, taking the time to actually knock on the hallway door to gain entrance rather than keep the door open between their rooms for the sake of convenience. It made Gabriel feel more at ease with him that as bad as a person Jesse had to be for world peace that he would never barge in without justified cause.

It was okay.

Jesse and Hanzo did what they had to so many others could live.

It was okay.

Gabriel felt tears gathering in the corners of his eyes, fist clenching the bars of his walker hard enough to make the metal groan as he accidentally dented it and quickly removed his hands in disgust. 

He- No. JACK’S body was capable of dealing a huge amount of damage and taking it by itself, even without Gabriel’s barriers acting as an extra buffer in the battlefield. Gabriel needed to remember his strength and that many things needed to be handled as delicately like the pages of the picture books he liked to read. Jack was always gentle but he made it appear so easy.

Hell, he made many things appear so easy, like walking.

Gabriel wiped the corners of his eyes as he slowly walked his way across the floor, needing to connect with someone. Anyone, but someone here in Gibraltar.   
He climbed onto his bed and grabbed the holo head set on the shelf above his bed, struggling to keep himself balanced on the mattress as he plucked the wireless controller off too. Gabriel sat back down, setting the items on the mattress as he went to the nightstand to pick up the remote to the entertainment system, powering on the game console portion, and propping up his pillows to support his back. He laid back against them as he slipped on the holo headset, clicking the power button on as a blue narrow visor extended across his field of view, and picked up his controller.

Welcome Back!

…

Downloading new updates to ‘Village Adventure’! Please wait!

 

Gabriel smiled as he saw the huge package size that was being downloaded. Ever since the Omnic Crisis was over, and the edition of ‘Village Adventure’ Jack and Gabriel played went viral, the company that made the game halted any new version of the game and instead created a way for gamers to access the Entertainment Soft version of the game on new consoles. Apparently, Leviathan, was brought into develop and make new content for the game like he always had been doing on his private server. Completely unheard of in the video game industry but now almost everyone played this version of the game.

Update Complete!

Please select your character!

JackieSun  
ReaperMoon  
CowboyJupiter  
DragonCosmos

Yes, they did get Hanzo and Jesse to make characters as well during the crisis, much to everyone’s surprise. Jesse still plays with Gabriel when they both need to unwind from a rough theraphy day but Hanzo was more content to watch and comment than actually play. Gabriel selected his character ‘ReaperMoon’ and logged into Leviathan’s personal server, where all of their old houses and such were still being preserved in a private place in ‘Village Adventure’ after the game company asked for all data to be wiped to dodge any old bugs the old content could bring about during the global relaunch. 

Gabriel’s character, a black cloak-wearing badass awoke in the tiny house, Jack’s avatar sleeping idly on his half of the bed still, as he gained control of his player character. 

“Morning, Jack.” Gabriel mumbled softly as he moved his avatar to the other side of the bed where Jack’s pixelated avatar slept, small ‘Zzz’s moved over the blonde character’s head, a nice touch added by Leviathan.

He then moved his character out the front door and into the pixelated world. Leviathan called the visual appearance of the game ‘retro’ and worked hard to preserve the style of the game even as he continued to add updates that better improved what Gabriel’s old entertainment system could handle without lag.

User: Leviathan Joined The Server

The game window alerted Gabriel and within the blink of an eye, a turtle animal character teleported next to Gabriel’s character.

“Afternoon, Gabe!” A robotic voice cheerfully spoke through his headphone, making Gabriel smile warmly at Leviathan’s always prompt appearance when he logged on.

“Morning, Athan. How are you doing?” Gabriel asked as he spoke through his microphone’s internal headset.

“Great! How’s your therapy coming along? Do you want me to send Jesse more compilated data from the UN medical archives?” 

Gabriel chuckled in amusement and shook his head at his friend’s devious behavior. “Come on, Athan. I know Overwatch is gone but you’re still supposed to be ‘offline’ in terms of criminal activities.” He sighed.

Leviathan’s avatar made the chuckle animation on Gabriel’s screen. “No one tells a God what to do unless it’s Jack and Gabriel Morrison!” 

Gabriel laughed at that. Leviathan was one of the few omnic God Programs that wasn’t interested in the human genocide and indirectly aided both of them many times during the crisis so he could appear ‘neutral’ to other God Programs. Only Jack, Gabriel, Winston, Athena, Jesse, and Hanzo knew who the ‘game developer’, Leviathan, really was, going so far as to ask Jack to speak on his behalf when the game company that made ‘Village Adventure’ wanted to hire him and convince the company to let him work remote without revealing his true nature. That was when Overwatch held public favor though but the company wasn’t going to kick a super popular developer off their team just because the guy who interviewed for him got his company shut down. Leviathan had his own reputation by that point with the company and the community he helped foster to global popularity.

“So long as you keep your turtle parked in the New Mexico desert then I won’t have to come out and give you a personal lecture like we did last time.”  
Leviathan’s avatar made a ‘pouting’ expression. “Fine. I don’t want you coming out here anyways when we can play more enjoyable games on here! Here! Let me update your drive really quick so you can see the ‘Pluto’ ice region I’ve been working on!”

Game Is Updating! Please Wait!

Update Complete!

Gabriel logged back into the server and found his avatar transported to a VERY familiar looking landscape. It was an almost photographic replication of the Siberian tundra where the omnic God Program, ‘Hades’, set up shop. Metal tendrils covered in layers of snow streamed out from the omnium, spewing pixelated smoke from the funnels as Hades operate its slowly moving drills through the Earth’s crust to gather more minerals to build its armies. The entire situation was a literal Hell-on-Earth from what Gabriel remembered as they had to be dropped in from an extremely high altitude in an experimental pod that barely held together with Gabriel taking an enormous chunk of damage to absorb the impact after the pod hit the ground several miles off from the highly hostile omnium.

Torbjorn engineered the pod at the last second when Leviathan alerted them that the plans got leaked, something that almost costed the Strike Team their lives two other times while they were learning how to fight the omnic God Programs. Of course this led to a shit situation where Leviathan was forced to tell them he was a God Program himself but he did it to make sure that his ‘friends would be able to log back in again’ since no one else played the game as often as they did. Arguments happened on if they could even trust Leviathan since he confirmed he was a God Program by displaying his exact coordinates to the Strike Team in the New Mexico desert, revealing a massive, quadruped, tank shaped as a turtle sitting idle in the desert, solar panels on its shell to keep its core powered. Jack was the one who decided to trust Leviathan and that was how the plan changed from a team insertion to just Jack and Gabriel going in to destroy Hade’s core.

“You like it? I used the visual data you and Jack gathered on your commlink to reproduce it! Of course I’m going to change it up so it fits in with the nature of our game but this is where I’m going to plan to introduce robotic animals and plants! Maybe even allow people to move their houses here and make new NPC animal robots!” Leviathan cheerfully explained as Gabriel made his avatar follow Leviathan’s as they explored the gritty area. 

This wasn’t the first God Program location Leviathan incorporated neatly into the game, his own area in the desert, along with his mecha turtle tank was converted into a beautiful, rich, desert landscape with a fun ‘steampunk’ aesthetic. Players could even build on his turtle’s shell and collaborated to build a huge city with the turtle acting as a power generator for everything. It was Leviathan’s magnum opus; his dreams of a ‘community’ coming to fruition through collaborative gameplay to build a work of art. There was no way that ‘Pluto’ would not eventually be transformed from a nightmare into a dream field for humans and omnics to play in a digital landscape of Leviathan’s design.

“This is just the foundation, right? Using picture recreation of the area for inspiration before you modify it?” Gabriel asked curiously.

“Mhm. That’s the general idea but I still have to check with the higher ups once I get the placeholders in for the npcs, item shop, new items, and game modes, etc.” Leviathan answered as his avatar hand waved the whole thing casually. “You want to go back to your house so we can catch some beatles?” He asked curiously, making Gabriel grin at how well the God Program knew his favorite mini games to take his mind of his recovery.

“Yeah. Sounds good! Ready to get your ass kicked, Athan?”

“Pfft! Maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll get within ten beatles of my score this time, Combat Robe!” He cackled playfully.

“You’re on!” Gabriel grinned and watched as they were ported instantly to the default island of ‘Village Adventure’ where the SEP vets and Leviathan had their homes constructed. Their avatars rushed off together to get their nets from their houses and headed out to the insect spawn area where Leviathan initiated their own personal mini game to collect the most beatles in five minutes.


	12. Broker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very short chapter but very important! Happy New Year!

“The information you want will come at a high price, McCree.” 

The voice on the other side of the line spoke as Jesse rolled one of his spurs against the grass, Hanzo illuminating surrounding the area in his mind, like a security system, with several tendrils weaving through the tall grass in the darkness, keeping an eye out for both of them as he talked to the shadow broker. He hated that he had to fall back to relying on this twisted scumbag for information but all of his leads on possible suspects were drying up and fast. Someone was out there eliminating all trace of their existence from the Overwatch and Blackwatch data bases.

If several key members of Blackwatch hadn’t disappeared off the face of the Earth and showed up with Talon, those he had been keeping an eye on anyways, he would have gone in and taken them out himself in a roaring rampage of revenge on Jack and Gabriel’s behalf. At least until Leviathan pulled some strings and got him some interesting data; It was good to have a God Program in your pocket, he had to admit. Now he had leads but no way to track or trace them without covert help that he no longer had. Resources he had at his disposal were dwindling each day he did not spend out on the battlefield, gaining favors and saving important people. He was twisted like that and the heavens only know where he’ll end up when this is all over but he HAD to find out.

Had to find out what happened on that security tape after the feed was intentionally cut off when Jack’s body was shot.

The world owed Jack Morrison a favor for all of them to find out and the fact that Leviathan felt the need to actually assist proved that time was not on his side anymore a year after the explosion.

Gabriel could walk efficiently at this point and was learning the finer aspects of running with Genji taking over as Gabriel’s physical therapy assistant with with Zenyatta, his omnic master. Jesse was going to head back out into the shadows after a year of serving the light by being there for Gabriel but duty called and it couldn’t wait for him to drag his feet any longer.

“What’s your price then, Broker?”

“Four explosions were recorded at the Zurich base one year ago today. How did the bombs get past security and Blackwatch?”

Jesse bit down hard on the end of his cigar, the bitter taste of the cigar’s innards become too much as he dropped it on the ground and spat out the chunk he bit off by accident, rubbing out the lit end with his boot. Fucking figures the broker would hit him where it hurt most.

“I planted the bombs myself. All were to go off in non-critical areas of the building that I had constant surveillance of all times to make sure there would be no fatalities, except for the ones I was counting on.” Jesse admitted bitterly, feeling Hanzo gently run numerous small tendrils through his hair under his hat form as he tried to console Jesse the best that he could without talking. He was so sure he could take out the undercover Talon agents and get Overwatch dismantled from that alone but the bombs got moved, even with Hanzo expending an enormous amount of energy to weave his tendrils through the building to keep an eye on the areas where he planted them. There wasn’t suppose to be any lasting structural damage that would cause the collapse of the building. He had gotten really good with bomb detonations throughout the years in Blackwatch, after all.

“... I see. How very interesting, McCree. I will gladly assist you for the cost of that fine bit of information but I’m sure you’re aware that your bounty is about to skyrocket to an all-time high, right?”

McCree grinned, the broker apparently tossed him a little ‘extra’ on top of it. That information had a powerful buyer behind it and this was his only warning of who he was up against. Well, if the broker wants to watch a game of cat and mouse then he has no choice but to oblige his old friend. 

“So-” 

A beep from his private datapad showed that he received access to a particular Swiss data bank, purchased anonymously (by the broker), and contained exactly the leads he had been trying to look for on his own.

“Enjoy, McCree. Until next time.” The broker spoke neutrally and Jesse felt his luck finally pick itself up from the mud as the broker disconnected from their private line.

Looks like the game is back on then.


	13. Learning to run

Gabriel loses his footing as he makes a sharp right turn, stumbling into the wall as Genji slides to a halt ahead of him down the hall and looks back at him expectantly. He quickly recovers his footing and pushes off the wall, dashing after Genji as the cyborg turns away and resumes running at what must be a leisurely pace for him, Gabriel theorizes from how fast he has seen the man sprint before. Going slow enough that he was always halfway down the hall but no further to keep encouraging Gabriel when he could easily lap him at max speed. 

Zenyatta hovered in the doorway leading into the physical rehabilitation gym, his hands held lightly in a prayer pose as he watches them both do laps in the looping hallway around the gym that branches out into other corridors that were utilized by Blackwatch once upon a time. All those rooms are now storage areas or otherwise untouched but locked up tightly to prevent what happened at Zurich from happening here; bombs being detonated in the Blackwatch areas where the structures of the building were exposed and rarely visited.

“You are doing most excellent, Gabriel.” Zenyatta encourage him, ever a tranquil presence he has come to lean on with Jesse sudden departure after his bounty shot up and went on the run in case the authorities tried to search the old Overwatch bases for him now that everyone knew he was still alive.

Jack’s body had injuries on it that would throw off any bounty hunter or official thinking that a silver-haired man with a slightly receding hairline and two gashing scars across his face (who could barely run without toppling over) would be the famous Jack Morrison. They dyed his hair completely white and trimmed back his hair a bit to give him a few extra years added to his visual age and Gabe honestly didn’t mind it much. He looked more like Jack’s father and that always brought back some of the fondest memories he ever had in his life as a combat robe. Now he didn’t feel too bad messing with Jack’s looks though he bet Jack would be annoyed like that time he got drunk and Jesse joking dyed his hair purple during the Omnic Crisis.

Gabriel smiled at the omnic monk as he passed by him, feeling pretty good with the personal cheer squad he had while Genji playfully taunted Gabriel into continuing the chase.

“Jack’s going to be pretty mad if that’s as fast as you can go! He had some semblance of pride of being able to keep up with Lena and I!” 

Oh man, if only Genji knew that was just Jack’s stubborn pride as a leader more so than just showing of this athleticism. 

He pushed himself harder down the straight after slowing down to make the sharp turn while Genji simply drifted his body to the proper angle by sliding on the floor to keep his momentum. It was a technique that had Gabriel worry for his wrist and hip, the pain from his earlier falls making the tactical slides look dangerous rather than, well, tactical. Genji kept making him watch the slides and made him watch sporting programs like baseball to explain how he could move his body without it breaking on him. A ‘controlled fall’ as Zenyatta further enlightened him before Genji pulled of videos of people doing ‘parkour’ and he decided that was way too terrifying for him to ever try.

Gabriel knew he was wasting both energy and time with his slow turns but he honestly couldn’t help it. After a few more laps, his was sufficiently out of breath and Genji came to a halt in front of the door where Zenyatta was watching them both.

“Very good, Gabriel.” Zenyatta praised him as he walked over to both of them. “Overcoming your fears with conviction is the first step to a new, more fulfilling life.”

He was out of breath, panting hard as he placed his hands on his knees to steady himself while sweat soaked his t-shirt and hair. Genji was more part of the philosophy of ‘doing and learning’ while Jesse was more of a ‘teach, pose, execute, and repeat until perfected’. It was kind of backwards considering their personalities but he still got the ‘Jesse’ breakdown form from Zenyatta though, the omnic understood that Genji’s explanations tend to be too vaguely worded at times. The omnic was also good at helping him express his feelings and comfort him now that one of the best people who knew him, outside of Jack, vanished from his life. Even if Jesse promised to return, it still hurt to be abandoned by him.

The three of them headed outside for meditation after Gabriel retrieved his tote bag and took a long drink from his water bottle as they made the transition to their spot on the cliff. Zenyatta figured out quickly that Gabriel needed to work out his pent up nerves with daily exercise and focus tasks before he could slip into meditation. A ‘reflection’ of Genji from the past was something he was compared to but was always quick to clarify that their emotional pains are far different from the other.

Apparently, Genji was close to death when Overwatch found his body, and rebuilt him a cybernetic one to bring down the Shimada empire before he left the organization to travel. Apparently Zenyatta then brought him on as a student in Nepal and came to the Gibraltar Overwatch base after they were asked to stay with them by McCree. No doubt Jesse saw the potential for Gabriel to get help with his existential crisis from the monk similar to Genji from before and passed the torch to them when he had to go off the radar to keep them all safe.

It was spring in Gibraltar, the warm winds coming off the ocean felt good against his sweating skin as they stepped outside. Reinhardt was packing up his armor with the help of Brigitte and Torbjorn, the three of them planning on leaving the base to go their own ways after McCree departed, feeling that retirement would be the smarter thing to do, though the crusader was much more bitter about it than the others. The group at the base was getting smaller and smaller, as the organization Jesse and Jack built up together was now fraying even more by the seams by McCree’s departure. Angela stayed because she was Gabriel and Jack’s doctor, first and foremost, but he could see the longing in her eyes as she watched news reports from around the world in her office, not much to do when she wasn’t needed to treat Gabriel.

A hand touched his shoulder and he realized Zenyatta was hovering beside him, Genji heading off to the cliffside in the distance alone. 

“Sorry, I was- You know…” Gabriel mumbled as he looked back at the trio loading up their things in the dropship. 

“It distresses you to say goodbye to them or to see more people move on from Overwatch?” Zenyatta asked sympathetically as he kept his hand on his new student’s shoulder, Gabriel finding the contact comforting.

“Overwatch is all I have left but what good is an organization with just a few people in it that does nothing?” 

Zenyatta hummed lightly in thought for a moment before looking up at Gabriel. “Do you feel you situation, or rather, Overwatch’s situation is helpless?”

Gabriel sighed heavily. “I’m just- I’m not used to not fighting. I was created for that purpose, and now my current purpose is to find Jack Morrison and bring the terrorists that did all of this to justice. With Jesse gone and Overwatch effectively stripped from power, there is nothing I can do anymore, is there?” He didn’t want to feel this resigned to his fate. Of not having any stones laid out before him as he gets closer to mastery over Jack’s body.

“I see. You have never had a chance to decide your own path in life, have you? Many omnics felt the same after the war, many doors open for them that were previously once shut and many never even noticed their existence.” Zenyatta explained thoughtfully as Gabriel listened. “Do you still wish to follow your code or would you like to augment it in a way that gives your life more meaning? Those who could assist you with your mission to find Jack Morrison and the terrorists are gone or unable to help you like you are used to being assisted; pointed in a direction and told to run and shoot. Do you still desire that path, even if you might only find misery and no answers when you open that door?”

Gabriel, frowned, his heart heavy in his chest as he brought a hand up to press a palm to the pain. He was terrified of the unknown, a raw nerve still hanging out after the explosion. Jack’s body wasn’t his and yet going on the offensive meant putting it at risk when he could make a barrier or operate it to its full capacity like Jack did. His opponents wouldn’t be omnics but people. People that stroke a killing blow to both the organization and the man that he loved more dearly than the world itself. 

Humans died so easily. He had seen it so many times in SEP and on the battlefield. Ripped to shred in moments, even with barriers in place and Gabriel was hoping he could battle an opponent that pulled the rug out from under both Jack and Jesse? It was overwhelming and he had to shake his head, trying to not vomit as he remembered the corpses and gore.

“I apologize, but it was necessary that you realize what revenge means because that is the path you linger on following.” The omnic speaks, giving gabriel a gentle squeeze on his shoulder, helping to ground him as he takes several breaths in through his nose, trying to filter out the unpleasant thoughts from his mind like Zenyatta had taught him. “Would you like to run another lap before we meditate?”

“Yeah. Just one run around the building.” Gabriel breathed out before setting down his bag and water bottle to head off. One lap around the building to shake off his nerves.

Zenyatta was still waiting for him when he came back but the dropship had left. He picked up his bag and water bottle, following Zenyatta to the cliffs where Genji was already beginning his meditation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short chapter! Don't worry! The updates will get longer from here on out!


	14. Prequel to Vigilante

One Month Later

Gabriel had taken up the mantle of ‘Soldier 76’ as a warning to Talon that he was coming for them. His jacket no longer black but a red, white and blue. Red for the blood he will spill, blue for the eyes they removed, and white for the ghost they left behind. That was who ‘Soldier 76’ was and the man Gabriel became after leaving the safety of the Gibraltar base, to find his own answers out in the world with just his abilities, with no one else on the line to get hurt as he broke tied with those he loved. 

Winston and Angela gave him parting gifts though, insisting he take them with him to make up for what he lacks in the unforgiving world; a visor and a face mask that relays information to help him aim and filter the air of toxins for him, along with a re-useable healing canister to boost his own factor. They wanted him to succeed, to find Jack and bring him back home to Gibraltar when they couldn't do much to really help him out with McCree off the radar. Overwatch was banned anyways and Angela wanted to go back to helping the less fortunate caught out in warzones while Zenyatta and Genji continued to wander the world. He really was alone now.

Gabriel’s visor was an advanced piece of hardware that could act both as an aim assist tool along with function as a tablet screen, for all intensive purposes. A function that Leviathan took constant advantage of as he pretty much saw no need to follow the rules Overwatch imposed on him as a God Program when Gabriel left their safety net. Athan DID say he would observe all restrictions placed on him since he respect Jack and Gabriel that much, after all.

An incoming call alerted Gabriel on the left side of his visor and he tapped a button on the side to accept it.

“Got new leads for you on possible Talon-financed gangs in Italy.” Athan’s robotic voice piped in after Gabriel switched on his commlink in his ear.

Gabriel was slowly making his way through Europe after leaving Gibraltar, becoming a vigilante to help all the people he could while also never staying in the same place for too long. He needed more combat experience and actual weapons to use since he could no longer count on being able to get back to Gibraltar with the funds he had. It was one thing to create guns from himself and fire bits of himself as bullets but he also couldn’t count on being able to get ‘refills’ of anything that was too contaminated to reabsorb. He couldn’t risk Jack’s body taking on the toxins since he couldn't reliably get a chemical flush either.

Basically this was the worst thing Gabriel could do for his own health and Jack’s body’s well being but no one was going to do anything to help him figure out what happened to Jack. He was incredibly grateful that Athan went snooping after Gabriel went dark and decided to help him out. The God Program was his only source of support and was constantly tweaking the software to his visor and other gear to keep better work with Gabriel and keep out those looking to put him down early.

“Feed me the data and let’s see if we can do something to help the police out a bit, Athan.” Gabriel responded, walking about the rental apartment, cleaning the 12mm semi-automatic he took off a gang member one week ago when he busted a small drug gang in Athens. Didn't kill anyone he didn't have to but took a few of their guns will him before leaving a tip for the police to go in and arrest them after he was done.

His visor downloaded the data and he set the pieces he was clean aside to take a look at what Athan sent him.

“Mafia isn't too happy that these guys are playing on their turf but have no idea that Talon is backing them with guns and intel.” Athan explains as Gabriel swipes through the information slowly, trying to process it at the same time. “They put out a hit on the gang’s leader, likely hoping the money will solve the problem for them by splintering the gang in a power gap. Expect they don't know that Talon will just stick another one of their own in. The group is headquartered in the countryside, kind of a weird place to do so, but, I’m not going to bother trying to figure out why that is.” He spoke dismissively before changing topic. “As for the likelihood of any of these guys knowing about the people who did the Zurich explosion? Very unlikely.”

“I know. I need more experience dealing with Talon and this indirectly counts.” Gabriel spoke as he swiped the visuals of the gang’s base and other data aside to return to weapon maintenance. “Any other observations you can give me that aren't related to Italy?”

“Jesse McCree and Hanzo are somewhere in China, based on obscure Chinese message board compilation I ran before calling you but of course it’s no real hard evidence other than the Chinese joking around about seeing a western cowboy in the countryside. It’s pretty hysterical what they are writing, to be honest. I know Hanzo would get a kick out of it so I’m keeping an archive going.” He snickered in amusement.

Gabriel smirked and rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Well, I'm sure he’ll appreciate the thought whenever they come out from whatever hole they’re hiding away in.”

“As for Talon, itself, I haven't made any progress on their security measures…” Athan somberly told him. 

“It’s okay, Athan.” Gabriel reassured him sympathetically. “I told you not to touch anything direct with Talon anyways so it’s no circuitry off your metaphorical back.” He chuckled lightheartedly. “The help you give me is more than enough and I can't thank you enough but the last thing we need is for an anti-omnic group like Talon learning that a God Program is trying to hack into its servers.”

Athan sighed heavily with his robotic voice. “I just… I just want you safe, Gabriel. I don't have any friends who know who I really am and… I can't afford to lose someone like you.”

Gabriel paused at that, feeling guilty for his selfish behavior but Athan understood very well what Jack meant to Gabriel first-hand. “What about Oracle? Surely you stay in contact with them?”

Oracle was the other peace-minded God Program that the Strike Team moved to Nepal’s mountains to keep them safe from hostile attacks by isolating their server where it could not be easily accessed after helping them during the Omnic Crisis. Athan went about aiding them a lot more subtly while also staying neutral in the other God Program’s eyes along with his moving fortress out in the New Mexico desert being hard to get to (his missile defense system was nothing to sniff at either).

“Oracle… Oracle is trying to find their own way after the war. Trying to help in their own way out there in Nepal. No idea exactly what their plan is but I can only hope that they find meaning like other omnics and I have.” Athan tried to explain to Gabriel. “I still talk to Oracle but they spend a lot of time ‘idling with purpose’, if that makes any sense to you. It’s a concept I don't understand fully but Oracle says it helps relax their processing system. I respect that they find it calming and they accept that I prefer to always be moving optimally to keep myself occupied to be relaxed.”

“I guess I understand what you’re saying. Oracle has been isolated in Nepal for a while and has very limited access to the outside world outside of your connection. Assuming they are still following the restrictions Overwatch placed on them, of course.” Gabriel added, knowing that it honestly was impossible to keep a God Program forever isolated but Oracle and Leviathan followed the restrictions as instructed for a good number of years.

“Mhm. What about you?”

“What do you mean?” Gabriel asked as he paused in greasing the parts.

“When you get Jack back, what do you two plan on doing?” Athan repeated curiously.

“The first thing that happens when Jack gets back is that he’s getting our marriage certificates. If McCree can marry his hat then Jack Morrison can DEFINITELY marry his beloved jacket!” Gabriel spouted confidently, as if it was a joke that he would do anything else.

“You do know that Jack is technically dead, right? A dead man can’t file for a marriage license, Gabriel.” Athan snickered playfully. “But, in all seriousness, I’ll be glad to file the documentation away for you two through many, many proxies and have it be on the record anyways.” He added in a sing-song manner that instantly had Gabriel suspicious.

“Okay, what’s the catch, Athan?”

“You both have to come out to the desert and let me be in your wedding picture!” Athan declared happily.

Gabriel’s jaw practically dropped at that request. “What the hell, Athan?! No one is suppose to know you still exist, much less get your fucking turtle tank in the picture without a helicopter!!” He argued.

Athan gasped at that offensive statement. “Are you calling my mobile tank FAT, Gabriel?!”

“Yes. Your tank is very fat for a turtle, Athan.” Gabriel snickered teasingly at the God Program. It was all fun and games between them anyways since Athan hardly ever got offended by anything seeing as he was a game developer who liked to chat on social media.

“Hmph! Coming from the guy who wants me to hack into the UN data base and add his marriage record to the list, you’re a very mean person, Gabriel!” Athan added with a simulated click of his tongue.

“Pfft! You’re the one who offered, Athan! Don’t go blaming this on me!” Gabriel laughed in amusement for what felt like the first time in a long while.

“Fine, fine. Anyways, you wanna log in and play some ‘Village Adventure’? I want you to meet my new friend from Korea and his cute daughter! I think she’ll be able to give you quite the challenge since she beat your beatle collection record.” Athan smugly added, flaring up Gabriel’s competitive side since he currently held that ‘Village Adventure’ record since the game developers weren’t allowed to officially compete in those games for the community.

Gabriel immediately put on his visor after running to his travel bag and pulling out his wireless controller that Athan modified the software to that would allow it to work with the visor. He sat down on his bed and booted up his visor and then the ‘Village Adventure’ app that, surprise, Athan also allowed to run the game (and run it in 2D mode as well!). “What’s her current time? I won’t let some kid take my record on my watch!”

Athan laughed hard at that with his synthetic voice. “Oh my god, Gabe, you sound like a stereotypical old man! I’m adding that sound bite to the ‘friendship’ folder!” He added with glee before logging into the private server himself, his avatar waiting outside of Gabe and Jack’s house as he gave Gabriel time to greet Jack’s sleeping avatar like usual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short chapter because this leads into Gabriel's new life as the vigilante Soldier: 76 and I wanted to explain a few things about Gabe's support system before we get into his first real mission taking out the Italian Mobster Wannabes.


	15. I'm still here

Gabriel infiltrated the warehouse early in the morning after Athan managed to crack into the security feed with the help of a friend to help keep himself safe from hacker who could trace the infiltration back to him. With his commlink patched into his visor and several test run made earlier in the morning hours the previous day to make sure it work without flaw, Gabriel made sure no one was around when he changed his outfit from a bland white runner’s sweat shirt and pants to his own version of the outfit Jack wore when they both transformed together during the good old days: Red, white, and blue ‘76’ jacket, comfortable athletic pants, boots that could take anything tossed at them in battle along with revealing the several straps he had on under the sweat gear that had two holstered 9mm pistols and seven total rounds for the mission. It should be more than enough to take down the men, even if he missed a few shots here or there.

He reached up to tap the ‘call’ button on his commlink and Athan answered it immediately.

“Hey, Gabe! I’m ready to go live on this side whenever you are! I got a headcount of fourteen men on the premise plus one mafia grunt they’re currently torturing in the building for information. We should probably assume that they’re on high alert since I have no clue if the mafia guy is high ranking or not and they might expect a rescue mission.” Athan advised him, making Gabriel fidget where he was hiding in the forest nearby.

“Shit. They have a hostage.” Gabriel grumbled to himself as he switched his visor to night vision, low-light output mode to keep the visor from giving him away in the darkness. There were two guards patrolling outside and one on the roof from what he could see and he quickly snapped off the mode to turn the visual light off - he really needed to get someone to fix the light output on that mode but that would require going back to Winston if Athan couldn’t help him find someone else…

As for the hostage situation, his gut feeling was telling him to ignore the man since it would only make things more difficult in the long term if he saved the man but then he paused for a moment. Jack wouldn’t ignore someone that was being tortured - Hell, his stupid ass would gun right for the hostage and he would expect Gabriel to perform his barrier blocks perfectly to prevent bullets from hitting Jack. Gabriel had a feeling that Jack would chew him out for ignoring a person in need but he wouldn’t let it compromise the entire mission. Saving the man wouldn’t be the highest priority but his safety would still be very important.

“Athan, can you keep an eye on the hostage for me and make sure they alive? I plan on rescuing them when it’s convenient.” Gabriel whispered, double checking both of his 9mms before putting away one and removing the safety of the one in his hands. He could do this! Talon is a long ways away but this would be his first steps to truly becoming a hero worthy of saving Jack!

“Roger! I’ll keep him in my sight, Gabe! Go get them, Tiger!!” Athan cheered him on, making Gabriel smile from the encouragement.

He waited until the patrol passed and bolted for the building from the shadows, Athan putting in dummy loop footage into the feed as Gabriel grabbed one of the guards from behind and choked him out, quickly dashing with the man on his back to the forest to strip the key off him before bolting back to the door to unlock it. It was a dirty and underhanded method to choke out the guard but he couldn’t risk the asshole on the roof spotting him since he never learned how to deal with sniper fire without a barrier. Genji made sure he knew how to incapacitate opponents in many different ways before he left with his master to travel the world and he was more than grateful for that considering how useful the techniques were now.

The inside diagram of the building popped up in the corner of his visor hood along with red dots that symbolized the enemy. Gabriel played many of these ‘espionage’ type games with Athan as they worked on fine tuning their abilities to work as a cohesive unit together and this was the general hud that worked out the best for them. 

“Remember: I can’t update your hud as smoothly as I want so be aware that the red markers might not update accurately since all of the cameras are fixated and humans are rather difficult to predict compared to game AI…” Athan reminded Gabriel somberly.

Gabriel held up a thumb instead of saying anything that could give away his position to the enemy. He was going to have to be very careful about how he approached the situation considering he wouldn’t have long until either the outside guard figured out that one of their own was missing and would start investigating the disappearance. He was hoping he could non-lethally take down everyone but this was real life… There was no way he would be able to do this perfectly with no real life infiltration training but good god he hoped he wouldn’t be forced to kill everyone in the building to get Talon’s attention.

He wasn’t the best at Italian, only knowing a few phrases here and there that he picked up when Jack stayed in one of the Italian watch points, including some words that he remembered purring rather sensually into Jack’s ear a few times to make his lover flush. Hearing the particular word, even when used is a likely crude fashion, made Gabriel’s heartache something fierce for the good times he had with Jack. He shoved it aside though cause he needed to focus as he hugged the wall with his 9mm at the ready as he waited for someone to come near or at least give him enough time to use the hud as a cross reference.

“It seems they’re very early in their interrogation of the hostage since they finally shoved the chair he’s tied down to over so I could do a proper analysis of the situation. Audio feed suggestions that the hostage won’t break anytime soon and their torturer is going to take the ‘slow’ approach.” Athan spoke up, nearly making Gabriel shit his pants in surprise from how deep in his head he was over when it would be good to turn the corner or not.

Not that he had to wait much longer for the world to decide for him as gunshot rang out, a bullet lodged in the concrete wall next to his head. Gabriel whipped around and held his gun up to find himself looking down the barrel of a shotgun along with a 9mm someone else was holding - Gabriel was now in a two versus one situation thanks to his inaction like a fucking idiot.

The two suited men looked at Gabriel curiously before looking at each other before speaking to him.

“They think your outfit looks like shit from a superhero movie.” Athan deadpanned in Gabriel’s ear, translating the Italian for him. “A bad one.” He added as the guards snickered in amusement.

The guard with the shotgun stepped forward and nudged the barrel of the 9mm with the barrel of his own gun as he spoke casually again.

“They’re playing it cool because of how stupid you look and want you to drop your gun. I wouldn’t advise it but it’s your call to surrender or not, Gabe. More enemies apro-”

Gabriel fired off his gun, a point blank headshot into the guy with the shotgun and another bullet for the 9mm guy as he rolled into action. Two headshots but like hell he was going to get lucky as the entire warehouse went loud with an alarm and the echoing of shoes on concrete and metal in the distance. He rolled behind a container as someone spotted him dashing across the opening from the wall to the container, gunfire saturating the area, forcing Gabriel to activate the tactical visor’s targeting system so he wouldn’t panic and let the software prioritize targets for him.

He raised his 9mm and waited for there to be a significant lack of fire before peaking around the corner of the container to open fire while the men were reloading.

\--

Athan grew worried when Gabriel never reported back about his mission status. Sure, he wasn’t his boss or anything but Gabriel was always on the verge of a panic attack during his first gang round up in Greece, constantly calling him for reassurance and to simply have ‘someone in his ear’ since he was used to battle listening to Jack’s voice. Athan hacked into the cameras of the compound, using someone else to get the live feed rather than doing the hacking himself and immediately called Gabriel’s visor the moment he witnessed how CLEANLY the Italian gangsters were killed. Gabriel said he was doing the mission solo so there was no way someone was helping him take down targets with such precision and with clean headshots.

Yes, Gabriel had the visor and it’s targeting algorithm but he wasn’t proficient enough with a pistol to bring down 80% of the gangsters that were equipped with Talon goods with headshots from the various camera feeds Athan checked over multiple times just to be certain. The bleeding wound on the side of Gabriel’s head and the way he walked about so confidently were some of the biggest tip offs until Athan saw Gabriel tap the ‘answer’ button on the side of his visor to actually hear him SPEAK.

Jack grunted in annoyance as he started combing the safe house for survivors and goods to scavenge. “You should stick to crafting adventures in the digital world where death isn’t permanent, Leviathan.”

Athan watched Jack move, full of purpose and with no movement that would suggest a mental disconnect with how a body should move. Gabriel really wasn’t playing a prank on him after all, was he? Was this really Jack he was watching through the security feed? What happened to him?

More importantly, why was he in his own body now?

“Where have you been for the past two years, Jack?” Athan asked, full of concern for his friend and not wanting to push him away by getting accusatory. 

Jack picked up a rifle, and examined it thoroughly before setting it back into the crate he plucked it from, clearly not good enough for his standards when Gabe probably would have taken it. He moved on to the next crate, prying it open with a crowbar since it was an old fashioned wooden one.

“I’m going to make this easy for you, Leviathan. I don’t trust you. I don’t trust any of you, and I certainly can’t trust Gabriel if he does stupid shit like this without even questioning it.” Jack growled lowly, setting the crowbar against the crate as he started shifting through the packaging for ammo. For a guy who had been MIA for two years, he certainly has a good idea of what to look for as he opens a sack he collected from nearby to put boxes of 9mm handgun ammunition into it along with two brand new pistols before picking up the crowbar to move on.

“I don’t see what I’ve done to earn your skepticism, Jack. I’ve been nothing but helpful to Gabriel since you… ‘left’, I guess?” 

A gunshot went off and Athan instantly turned their processors back to fully see what happened, quickly replaying the feed he overlooked for a split second. Jack coldly lifted his 9mm to shoot one of the hostages in the head, execution-style, after the person managed to get free from their chair. Athan was disturbed that someone as kind hearted as the Jack Morrison he knew would just shoot someone that was clearly unarmed, even if it was 99% likely they were just a grunt for the Mafia. Jack tucked the 9mm back into his side holster and stepped over the corpse to go into the room where the hostage was being held to investigate further.

“Sloppy. So goddamn sloppy.” Jack huffed under his breath as he opened file cabinets to start sifting through paper invoices and other remnants, sitting down on the chair casually that the hostage was likely tied to from the cut up rope that laid in a pool around the chair legs.

“...Jack? You’re scaring me a bit here.” Athan nervously confided in Morrison, wanting to still be able to trust the man he admired so much during the Omnic Crisis. This had to be an act. Not even Jesse McCree would gun down a hostage fleeing in cold blood without giving them at least an audible warning before shooting them in the back. Where was his mercy? “... Do you want to talk, maybe? I won’t tell Gabriel, Hanzo, or Jesse about what you will tell me. I’ll even make a program for the visor so you can specifically delete the entire thing from my memory.” Athan offered, growing a bit desperate for Jack to talk to him.

“Athan?”

“Yes, Jack…?” Athan replied, a bit more hopeful now that Jack was referring to his nickname and not his given name. He watched as Jack flipped and skimmed through the many paper documents, eagerly waiting for him to talk to him.

“Gabriel would have died today if I hadn’t intervened.” Jack spoke bluntly, hardly suppressing the venom in his voice.

“I thought he could hand-”

“You sent the equivalent of fifteen year old with only two weeks of handgun training into a goddamn viper’s nest is what you fucking did, Athan!” Jack spat furiously this time, not holding anything back as he threw down the papers in his hand to the ground. 

“But his visor-!!”

“This is the real world, Athan! This isn’t some video game where you think if you make an aimbot that it will work out that way in real life! You can guide a horse to water but it doesn’t fucking matter if his tongue can’t touch the water’s surface!! He wasted a fucking clip trying to take out TWO trained gunmen, Athan! All those goddamn shots going wide even with your visor program trying to help him get a bead! He’s not a robot!!” Jack slammed his fist into the filing cabinet, the metal caving in from the force of being hit by a super soldier’s enhanced strength, something Gabriel struggled to even tap into. “And now TALON is going to find out about him and figured shit out! Gabriel is incapable of handling a surprise attack when he launches it himself and you expect him to deal with Talon when they start coming for him?!”

“Oh, that’s rich! Coming from the very man Gabriel is going out of his way to save from Talon’s clutches!” Athan countered, becoming angry himself with how belittle Jack was being. “How about you tell me what the fuck is going on with you, Jack Morrison, and we can get Gabriel off this dangerous path you think I’m willy-nilly sending him on for shits and giggles!”

“You think I haven’t TRIED?!” Jack turned to look at the security camera as he grounded his muddy boots on the white, pristine documents on the floor. “I’ve been fucking trapped in my own goddamn head for TWO YEARS! I’ve been literally screaming to Gabriel to fucking listen to me, to tell that FUCKING IDIOT that I’m alive, well, and going FUCKING INSANE because of whatever the fuck happened after the explosion!!” He yelled out in frustration. “I can hear and see fucking everything Gabriel does! I can even fucking hear his own fucking thoughts! Do you know what that fucking DOES to a person?! DO YOU FUCKING KNOW, ATHAN?!”

Athan struggled to grasp everything he was hearing from Jack. The man was trapped in his own head? How the hell does that even WORK?!

“This is the first time in two years I’ve been able to control my own body and speak with my own tongue! Even now I can feel something worse than fatigue fighting to pull me back into that place again!” Jack clutched his head as he keeled over. “I don’t want to go back, Athan!” His voice cracked almost painfully, on the verge of breaking down from the stress.

“Jack! Jack, listen to me!” Athan pleaded to his sobbing friend. “Let me fix my mistakes! Let me help you reach Gabriel! I’ll do anything in my power to help both of you, especially if Talon will be coming after you both because of me!”

Jack was gasping for air as he cried but not to the point of hyperventilating before he finally spoke again a few moments later, his voice still trembling. “Gabe- Gabe needs to go back to Winston and accept that he isn’t ready! He needs to train and train his fucking ass off in the training area where Athena will keep the bots from killing him, even at the most punishing levels where he NEEDS to be at! You getting this all, Athan?! Are you recording it so Gabriel can’t keep thinking that I’m dead or gone or whatever the fuck he keeps telling himself every other fucking minute?!”

“Yes, I am, Jack.” Athan spoke sympathetically as he kept making back ups of the recording as he was processing it, not caring that he was ignoring calls from his company while he was on company time. It’s not like they could fire him anyways since he rarely ever did such a thing on the job. “You want him to train. What else?”

Jack sniffled hard as he took off his visor, blue eyes showing up in the camera feed as Athan made sure to copy the visual recordings too.

“Gabe, I know you think you’re being a skeptic but that’s a goddamn lie. You’re a jaded asshole like you always have been and that’s what scares me the most about not being able to be there for you like I want to be. You can’t trust everyone at face value. Athan made a huge mistake in overestimating his confidence in the software he put into this visor, or should I say, the software he modified heavily based on Winston’s original vision.” He sighed as he looked down at the visor in his hand before looking back up at the camera. “It works beautifully, Gabe, but it’s not going to help you where you are right now. It’s a lot to swallow, knowing you’re not as good as you think but Winston will understand you coming back to the base if you stay humble, alright? It’s a tough world out there and I know that someday you’ll be ready to take it on, but for now? Lick your wounds and get stronger like I did when I first joined the army, okay?” Jack grunted as he brought a hand up to hold his head tightly.

“You okay, Jack?” Athan asked with concern for his friend’s pain.

“Yeah. Let me wrap this up real quick.” He hand waved with the visor in his hand. “I love you, Gabe. I never outwardly said it to you when we weren’t this human-combat-robe-hybrid thing and it was really shitty of me. I’m certainly not afraid to say it to your face if we ever get the chance to not be one like this and I’ll gladly teach you to write your name so we can sign our marriage documents together.” Jack chuckled weakly as he sat back down in the chair, leaning his head back to sigh heavily. “You’re an idiot but you’re my idiot, alright? Morrison, signing off.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit stuff happened! I was a bit nervous working on this chapter, especially with the reveal. I ideally don't want this fic going beyond 20 chapters so i sped it up a little bit so we can start moving to the final portion of the story. 
> 
> Please leave me some feedback!


	16. Progress

Gabriel replayed the security camera footage for what had to be the hundredth time since he woke up alone in the Talon compound and found everyone around him dead. In hindsight, Athan was being remarkably kind by waiting until he was back in his safe house before filling him in on what exactly happened after he was knocked out. He absolutely went off on the God Program initially after learning of what happened, both not believing the truth and unable to process the implications of that information until Athan actually sent the video to his data pad.

Jack was alive. 

Talon wasn't holding him hostage in some futuristic science fiction device or scooped out his brain during the chaos of the Zurich explosion. 

No, it was way worse than that the more Gabriel listened to Jack and how much pain he was in when he told Athan that he was trapped, completely conscious, in his own body, unable to get through to anyone, especially Gabriel. All the anguish and terror in his lover’s voice compelled Gabriel to run to the bathroom to throw up from how horribly the guilt gripped him. He was so cold, his body so weak as he gripped the seat of the toilet and expelled everything over and over as tears streamed down his cheeks uncontrollably. 

He was Jack’s oblivious jailer for two fucking years. Inflicting horrify trauma to a man he loved so dearly for two years and he still loved him regardless of everything. 

There was a word for it. Jesse and Jack both used it a few times when Gabriel couldn't understand why people protected/fell in love with their kidnappers, especially if they were practically tortured the entire time. Was that what he did to Jack? Was Jack just overlooking all the horrible things Gabriel did while ignoring his screams for help when he was locked away in his own mind?

Could they even HAVE a healthy relationship if Jack were to regain control of his body and Gabriel expelled? Would he even survive such a thing? Would both of them survive being forcibly divided?

Gabriel choked harshly on his breath as tears dripped onto the pale cloudy surface of the toilet water, his entire body hurting to the core while he was unable to stop crying pathetically. “I love you so much, Jack!” He croaked out weakly as he gripped the seat of the toilet. “I don’t want your body! I swear! I’m not lying!” 

He knew Jack could hear him - That is what Jack told him; He could hear him speak and hear his own thoughts, there was no barrier preventing information from going to Jack but it wasn’t working the other way around. It was frustrating to no end to not be able to understand what the fuck was going on here! Jack clearly controlled his own body after Gabriel passed out but he never did anything the previous times Gabriel was unconscious or sleeping?! What kind of ass backwards rules were in place?! Does synchronization not mean anything when a combat robe is in control of a body?

They needed an expert! Would the creators of the combat robes be able to shed light on what had happened? Were those people still even alive? Did Talon recruit or abduct them?

Where the fuck was Jesse McCree or Liao when you needed them most?!

Liao retired from the intelligence community after Overwatch’s fall and Jesse was out somewhere in the wild doing god-knows-what alone with Hanzo. Jesse didn’t even give him or Winston a way of contacting him and Gabriel kicks himself every fucking day that goes by not demanding that information from the idiot cowboy. Jesse McCree could be kidnapped and brainwashed by Talon for all he knows! He just loves running off and doing his own shit! Now he knows why Jack and Jesse had several bad fights over the years over how Jesse ran Blackwatch - The man was goddamn infuriating if you left him to his own devices for too long!

Gabriel took a deep breath to try to ease out the tremors wracking his- Jack’s body. He needed to stop thinking that it was his body, he was just house-sitting for Jack while he was locked up in the attic. Jack would be back in charge once they fixed this whole mess and hopefully Jack won’t toss him aside for too long. Gabriel could understand him wanting to have some space for several weeks and wouldn’t hold it against Jack if he never wanted to wear him casually again. He honestly hoped it wouldn’t work out that way but was going to be prepared for it regardless.

He dry heaved painfully, having nothing left in his stomach to push out, and then cleared his sore throat as he spat out a wad of mixed saliva and bitter stomach acid that clung to the insides of his mouth. Gabriel folded his arms on the seat and rested his forehead against them as he just focused on breathing, his whole body sweating from the exertion of puking, and tried to relax himself. He needed to get well enough to begin making his trip back to Gibraltar like Jack suggested even as humiliating as it was to go back so soon after convince Winston to let him go.

Winston… 

Gabriel gave Athan permission to send all the data from the mission, especially the record of Jack, to the scientist almost without thinking about it. He was always so helpful even when Gabriel knew he wanted to further study Jack’s body for scientific merits. What mattered was that Winston never pushed for unnecessary experimentations or invasive procedures, regardless of his curiosities. Gabriel admired the restraint the scientist showed, especially when Gabriel’s reasoning for going vigilante were so paper thin and full of holes that it was no surprise that Gabe fell on his ass as quickly as he did but Winston let him do it anyways.

Jack said that Winston would take him back under his wing if he ‘stayed humble’ but part of Gabriel still felt like he might say ‘no’ simply because he was likely on Talon’s radar now…

He sighed heavily and grumbled. 

“I feel so alone, Jack… Even when you’re so close to me.” Gabriel confessed quietly. “I want you back so badly. I want you to hold me and let me hold you in return like we always did back then.”

The warmth of Jack’s arms and the feeling of his heart beating against Gabriel when he listened closely for it… It was ironic that he was missing the security of Jack’s embrace when he was technically him was not lost on Gabriel. It felt like one huge sick joke that Talon was playing on them - a petty way to get back at them for Overwatch being a pain in the ass and doing good in the world by reducing the proud Strike Commander to merely a prisoner in his own body.

Gabriel gritted his teeth and pushed himself slowly off the toilet seat he had been leaning against. He had a phone call or two to make and an apology to prepare for in the meantime while he got his nerves together to talk to Winston again.

\--

“Been lookin’ fer ya fer a while now, Doctor Windigo.” Jesse McCree drawled in amusement as all the bodyguards Talon fell with ease as the sniper rifle Hanzo forged himself into rematerialized back into his hat form while Jesse pulled it back on with ease. 

“M-McCree…!” Windigo gritted her teeth as she clutched her wounded leg and dragged herself away from him while he approached with ease. 

“My sincere apologies for shooting you, Doctor.” Hanzo spoke solemnly, McCree frowning at his partner showing what could be the enemy sympathy considering the history between Doctor Windigo and the combat robes during SEP. She was like an older sister who constantly watched out for them in the later years when she had more power to alter the serums to allow certain combat robes to keep their memories better intact or make memory loss only temporary. 

McCree let that one slide since Hanzo rarely wanted to connect with anyone outside of himself, Gabriel, and Jack. Hanzo wouldn’t stop him from killing her if it came down to it, all sentimentals aside. 

The mission always came first.

“Don’t apologize, Hanzo. It must be hard for both of you to have to hunt me down like this…!” Windigo grunted as her back finally touched the concrete wall and she could more comfortably relax against it. McCree quirked a brow at that for a moment, thinking she was making a pitiful attempt to get away rather than get herself situated for a talk but kept his guard up regardless as he approached her.

Hunting down Doctor Windigo’s whereabouts after SEP was canned was hard work for even someone like McCree who specialized in finding people who didn’t want to be found or were specifically being kept hidden. None of Jesse’s contacts in the US military had any clue what happened to the good-natured doctor other than she kept up her regular check-ins with the US government so they knew she was still keeping to her nondisclosure agreement post-SEP. They had no clue about where she actually was except that she was working possibly as a medical assistant for a private company and not anything that would violate her agreement with the government like working in pharmaceuticals or any kind of chemistry field. People had the right to work even if they once worked on highly classified military experiments so long as they kept their mouths shut and didn’t ‘compete’ or move to another country.

Jesse had a 9mm in his hip holster that wasn’t connected to Hanzo in any shape or form as a back up and kept his hand hovering near it just so the doctor knew he wasn’t playing games. Shooting the guards through the large, sliding-glass window he opened earlier in the day in the facility was child’s play considering this Talon base was out in the American Southwest and he observed that they were a bit lax with keeping them closed in the heat. Either the assholes in charge of the base were squeezing the AC budget or no one gave enough of a fuck to tighten down on these kinds of security breaches but all it did was make Jesse’s job that much easier.

All he needed was for Hanzo to turn into a nice rifle with a silencer on it and it was child’s play taking out the guards when they escorted her to lunch. 

Jesse didn’t need to know what exactly Talon was doing at the base - all he needed was to take Doctor Windigo and start making their way back to the Gibraltar base with one of the few living SEP scientists that might be able to help Gabriel and Jack.

“We can save the small talk fer later, Doc. Fer now? I’m gonna need ya’ll to cooperate with me.” Jesse spoke as he pulled out a blindfold to gently wrap around her head, the scientist staying still and keeping her hands out to comply with him.

“Okay.” She replied, letting him zip tie her wrists together. “They put a tracker in my shoes and one in the leather fold of my belt.”

“Oh? Yer aware of that?” Jesse asked curiously as he went to remove her shoes before murmuring an apology as he reached down to start undoing her belt.

“I worked for the government before, McCree.” She smiled knowingly, drawing a small grin from Jesse in response as he slipped off her belt and left it with her shoes.

“Anythin’ else I ought ta know, Doc?”

“No, but I would appreciate you tending to my leg once we’re safe.” 

Jesse chuckled at that fondly as he scooped her up in his arms and went out through the window, Hanzo using a tendril to shut the window behind them before they took off running.

\--

The Talon executive in charge of the Science and Progress department smiled in amusement as he rewatched the security footage sent to him by one of their best hackers. He was sitting at his desk when the holographic file with a familiar pink skull appeared before him by complete surprise while he was working on his monthly report for the CEO. The man kept a holographic projector in his office, like the other executive heads, solely for interesting matters such as this that were not sent through their private email server.

Jack Morrison was alive and so was the so-called ‘god robe’ his enthusiastic cohort referred to, if their conversation on the security footage meant anything. The executive leaned back in his chair and scratched at his beard, pondering many things this could mean for Talon but most concerning was the risks this reveal could cause if certain people in his department found out about it. Morrison had no more political power and seemed to be stuck in his own kind of personal purgatory after what the executive thought was a clean kill on the Strike Commander those few years ago when Talon took out the Zurich base. He wasn’t personally there but his cohort was…

He frown grimly at that, since now he might have to run an investigation to make sure his cohort didn’t meddle with what was suppose to be a bullet in Morrison’s skull. The executive already had his hands full with the Reaper giving them trouble, no matter how many times they reconditioned him…

Killing his cohort might actually be on the table this time if the investigation brought some concrete proof of the doctor’s meddling. Just because the guy was a genius did not mean that he could do whatever he wished to push his agenda secretly in the shadows and not be held accounted for. Last thing he needed was for something really shitty to happen on his watch…

The executive sent payment to the account specified for the hacker who sent him the information. The usual payment for being friendly enough to give him a vital heads-up on the likelihood that a game was being played behind his back or worse: Unintended consequences for not following through completely on certain details.

Putting Morrison and the ‘god robe’ aside, he found something that might help with his Reaper-related problems in the security footage that might help put the wraith into a more cooperative move, if he played his cards right. It was nice to be handed a few aces after receiving the report that Doctor Windigo was taken from the Southwest Talon base and by none other than Jesse ‘Blackwatch’ McCree.

The executive saved the surveillance footage onto his portable chip and deleted the holofile once he confirmed it was securely on his own private server, via the chip. He then put his computer on ‘lock’ and picked up his phone to dial the CEO of Talon, ready to inform his boss of the select piece of information from the footage he obtained and how it could help keep their little god of death under their thumb for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a short chapter but I wanted to get it out sooner rather than later!
> 
> I hope you guys are enjoying the story as much as I am writing it! Please leave a review!

**Author's Note:**

> I'll write a second part if you guys want the ending to not be as ambiguous and also see Jack/Gabe in action with Jesse/Hanzo on the battlefield for more drama! Leave comments and feedback please!
> 
> Edit: A chapter 2 is being worked on!
> 
> Edit2: Anyone know how I can join the R76 discord chat?


End file.
